


as snow in harvest

by nasri



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War I, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Slow Burn, Soldier Dean, soldier Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-07-23 06:33:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 40,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20003875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasri/pseuds/nasri
Summary: He figured most men died with a bullet through their rib cage, that’s what he heard anyway from the Brits who made it back. But once his cards were laid, Dean knew with absolutely certainty that he wouldn’t die with a body left to bury.And he was right, in a way, because nothing gets buried in Siberia.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have grossly misrepresented both the timelines and tactical players in WWI Russia for plot-related reasons. Sorry!

Dean was sent off to war dreading the trenches in France. 

He sat with shell-shocked soldiers in the tight quarters of the Colchester Garrison, watching as their hands shook and their eyes stayed wide as the dead. Stories reached the American shores in waves, long before President Wilson ever dreamed of scattering his little toy soldiers across the globe. They knew all about the poison gas and diseases of the mind, soldiers rotting away in the mud and sleet of Belgian soil. Flanders, once an unknown stretch of land, became a kind of benediction, like the prayers his little brother whispered before bed. 

The British soldiers in Kent watched them pass with their eyes lowered, their lips pressed thin, and at that very moment Dean was certain his body was destined for the trenches. 

He considered his odds over a deck of playing cards, a game of solitaire laid out on the tin floor. He figured most men died with a bullet through their rib cage, that’s what he heard anyway from the Brits who made it back. But once his cards were laid, Dean knew with absolutely certainty that he wouldn’t die with a body left to bury. 

And he was right, in a way, because nothing gets buried in Siberia. 

Dean sits with his back to an abandoned train car, the snow packed to ice beneath him by hundreds of marching boots and the bodies of soldiers laid out while they were still warm. He has a cigarette in his pocket and a half empty matchbook lifted off a dead Cossack soldier. Dean fantasizes about lighting it up, the momentary flash of heat against his fingers, but he’s saving that rush of nicotine for his last breath. 

He shifts a little, careful not to stay in place too long in case his uniform freezes to the ground. For a moment, the scrape of his boots against the ice is the only sound in the whole world. Siberia is silent, at least until the Cossacks come. 

Dean knows it’s only a matter of time, that they’re out of ammunition and oil both. There’s word of evacuations from Vladivostok, whispered around the fires by men with blue lips, but Dean knows that any aid will come too late. They’re flanked by Cossacks to the south and Bolsheviks to the east. Not even the whole of the White Army could save them now. So Dean sits against the side of an empty train car and he waits for the firing to start. 

When the monotony of earth and ice and evergreen trees studded with bullet holes becomes too much for him to bear, he likes to think of Kansas. It’s not hard, not usually, to imagine that the patchy snow covered horizon is just Christmas in Lawrence. 

Kansas is wide-open farmland, stretching for miles and miles without a dip in the ground. In fall, there’s nothing but golden fields of wheat, just like in the songs, and corn rows high enough to lose yourself in. But by the time December rolls around, the fields have all been burned to cinders and there’s nothing but soil left. When it snows, in some ways, it looks just like Siberia. 

He thinks of Sam at six years old, his little hand pressed to the glass as he watched snow fall from their bedroom window. 

“Jesus, Sammy,” he whispers to himself, feeling his stomach clench at the thought of his little brother, waiting at home for a letter that will never come. 

He closes his eyes and begins counting down from thirteen in an attempt to calm the sudden lurch of panic, the adrenaline rush of his racing heartbeat. Dean might be waiting for that last cigarette, but sometimes his body reminds him that it’s not ready to die.

When his pulse is settled and he opens his eyes again, it’s to the distant silhouette of a figure stalking out of the forest. He stumbles when he hits the ice and pauses to lean heavily on a tree trunk. Dean reaches for his rifle like it’s muscle memory, but it only takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the fit of an American uniform. 

Dean slowly slips his hands back into his pockets, settling once more onto the ground. Men wander into the woods for all kinds of reasons these days, though most of them never make it back. The solider steadies himself, adjusting his coat and his boot laces with quick, gloved hands before he sets off in a march towards the train. 

Dean watches intently as the solider makes for one of the cargo transport cars with its side doors wedged open. His black hair is damp and curled at the ends, long enough to be visible despite the fur-lined cap pulled down over his ears. Dean wonders how long he’s been out here and how much of his regimen is still alive.

He’s not ten feet away when he finally spots Dean and he stops walking mid-stride, eyeing the rifle laid across his lap. Dean nods, what he hopes passes for one anyway, against the stiff collar of his overcoat. The man lingers, for just a moment, before nodding back. 

Dean turns away, pretending to gaze at the wooded horizon, but he watches out of the corner of his eye as the solider climbs into the train with barely a rustle of his coat.

The run rises higher, taking center theatre in the afternoon sky, and he knows it’s only going to get colder now. No one else passes by Dean’s little hideout, and soon he feels himself beginning to nod off, lulled by the temporary warmth of sunlight and the silence of the forest. It’s a hypnotizing combination and he thinks that dying of exposure really wouldn’t be half bad. He’s heard it’s just like falling asleep and sometimes, when morning comes, it’s a bit of a disappointment. 

This time, when he wakes, it’s to gunshots. 

He hears the distant sound of shells bursting on ice, coupled by the sudden rush of soldiers fumbling for their weapons and loading pistols with gloved hands. Dean is standing before he even registers moving at all, and a voice from down the tracks is shouting something, growing closer and closer until Dean can finally make out what he’s saying.

“It’s the Cossacks! Cossacks from the south!”

The voice stops abruptly and Dean begins to run. He slides along the ice as he checks that his rifle is loaded, and he makes it as far as the open train car before a hand is grabbing his arm and pulling him to a stop. 

The solider from the forest is crouched on the wooden floor, a finger to his lips. He tugs once more on Dean’s arm, before letting go and motioning for him to climb inside. Dean listens to bullets hit bodies four hundred yards away. He thinks of that cigarette in his pocket and his little brother waiting at home and he straps his rifle to his back and follows him. 

The solider is eyeing the battlefield through a bullet hole in the opposite wall, watching the carnage that Dean can hear from a distance. He moves silently, shifting down to gaze through another set of holes made by a spray of machine gun fire, seeking out a different vantage point. 

He sets off towards the door connecting the train cars without bothering to check behind him, as if he’s certain Dean will follow. He pulls at the complicated levers with confidence that comes from experience, and Dean spares a breath to wonder just how often he’s wandered through this train. Frankly, Dean isn’t sure where he gets the energy. 

He opens the door enough for a single man to slip through and balances one foot on the connecting platform before loosening the second latch to the telltale whine of frozen steel. 

Dean pauses for a moment, watching the spot where the solider disappeared from view. The gunshots grow louder, close enough to drown out the screaming, but still muffled from inside the train. His breath turns to mist in the cold and Dean decides that if he’s going to die anyway, he’d rather not do it alone. He takes one last look at the forest before he steps into the shadows of the connecting cars and closes the door behind him.

He follows the solider through three empty cars, both of them walking low to the ground, as if bullets will rip through the metal at a moment’s notice. Dean tries to mentally count off how far they have to go until they reach the caboose, a burned out box car filled with ash. 

The solider stops walking once they reach an old storage unit still littered with wooden creates, long ago emptied of any useful cargo. Dean watches as he cups his ear and sets it against the metal, listening for movement outside the train. He imagines it must burn, the cold bite of steel on skin, but the man doesn’t seem to feel it. He waits for a moment or two in his careful crouch, before he pushes off from the wall and immediately begins kicking through the wooden crates. 

The sudden noise is deafening compared to the distant rain of gunfire and Dean can’t help the adrenaline rush of panic that thrums through his fingers. The solider uses the butt of his rifle to smash through the thick wooden planks and he pries rotted boards from the lids with split fingernails. He doesn’t so much as glance at Dean while he works, so after a moment or two of watching, Dean joins him.

He nods in approval as Dean stands on one end of a plank and pulls hard on the other, snapping it into jagged pieces. He collects armfuls of the shattered lumber, and begins to wedge fragments of wood into hidden notches in the door handle. He runs his gloved fingers along the hinges, and works splinters into the cracks in the metal.

He repeats the process on the other side, a pain staking procedure, surgery with wooden stakes, until at last he seems satisfied. He gives each door an experimental tug, and the metal groans with the effort, but they remain closed.

Dean can hear the sounds of battle still and he stands listening to the symphony of gunpowder pops as the solider sinks against the wall.

After another rattling blast from an artillery shell, Dean unhooks his rifle and takes a seat against the opposite side, his back to the forest and what’s left of the afternoon sun. Light siphons through a cluster of bullet holes from a careless round of target practice. Now, he’s willing to bet that the soldiers wish they’d saved their ammunition. 

Dean’s thankful for the light, either way. Without it, the train car would be pitch black, with nothing but the gaps between the floorboards to see by. 

The soldier’s eyes are closed and his head is back against the wall, his chest heaving like he ran miles in the snow. Dean spots it then, the metal gleam of a tin disk with his last name and regiment stamped into the front. The leather strap is twisted, caught on one of his coat buttons, but Dean can still read it by the filtered light: _Cassidy, U.S.A., 75th PI. Penn._

Dean wishes he had the energy to introduce himself, to say anything at all, but instead he closes his eyes to the pinprick of grief and the memory of Sammy reading stories of Hopalong Cassidy from an old book with no cover. Dean would stitch the pages back himself each time the binding began to fray, and Sam would smile up at him with those puppy dog eyes and wait by his side until he finished.

He counts backwards from thirteen at least a dozen times, breathing deep and steady like he’s taking aim at ten yards. The sound of gunshots is beginning to fade, static into silence. 

“Cassidy,” he says, his voice dry and deep from the cold. “Hope you don’t mind if I call you Cas. It’s a bit easier on me.” Despite everything, he tries for a bit of the roguish, self-conscious charm that made women adore him in Kansas and forced the boys to pretend that they didn’t despise him for it.

Cas looks up at him with wide, blue eyes. He tilts his head and turns away, tucking his coat tighter around his shoulders. 

Dean takes it as permission granted. “My name’s Winchester, like the gun. For what it’s worth - ”

Cas moves suddenly, lunging forward and pressing one hand to Dean’s mouth, leaving the other flat against the wall. Their knees knock together and the jagged eyelets from his boot dig into Dean’s thigh. He’s about to protest, to drag Cas’ gloved fingers away from his lips, but he hears it then. Between the whisper of Cas’ breath against his cheek and the distant sounds of artillery fire, he hears voices.

He can’t make out the words, but he recognizes the intonation, the obvious pull of Russian melody to their speech. Cas lowers his hand, but doesn’t dare to move. They stare at each other, eyes wide, afraid to do more than breathe. Cas’ arm begins to shake from where he’s braced against the wall, and Dean steadies him with a hand to his chest.

They hear the unmistakable metal cry of doors being wedged open, but he can’t tell how close they are. They could be right outside or a dozen cars away. Their voices echo through the train and Cas bows his head like he’s praying. His hair feels brittle, frozen against Dean’s temple, and he can’t help but tighten his grip. It’s instinct, he thinks, to want to die with something to hold onto.

The voices draw closer and Cas exhales, a soft sound of acceptance, and Dean knows for certain now that they’re right outside. Cas slowly lifts his hand, placing it gently back over Dean’s mouth. He’s thankful for the muffled cover of his glove, because for all of Cas’ silence, Dean can’t help but breathe like his lungs are fit to burst. 

He listens to the men speak as they step across the joining platforms, reaching for the door with wood splintered into every available gap. Dean never believed much in angel wings, but he prays, for just a moment, that Cas’ work will hold. There’s a heavy jolt of metal, followed by soft murmurs of confusion and an angry command. The soldiers try again to open the door, but the lever doesn’t move. 

Cas’ lips are moving wordlessly and Dean wonders if he really is praying. Dean never had much time for church and he’s not sure what it is you’re supposed to say before you die. The Catholics believe in confession, but Dean’s sins are stacked higher than all the snow in Siberia. Besides, there’s not many Catholics left in Kansas these days. If he’s going to pray for anything at all, other than the strength of the wood wedging the door shut, Dean thinks that he’d pray for Sammy. 

He closes his eyes to the warmth of Cas’ fingers and hopes that the war ends before the year is through, so that his little brother never has a chance to enlist. He’d give his life for that much, he thinks. It’s not such a terrible sacrifice. 

The rattling on the door stops suddenly, followed by a rapid discussion with clipped tones. Dean knows a few words of Russian, picked up from the White Army soldiers that buffer the American ranks. He knows ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ little bits of profanity and ways to compliment women. He knows the slow, steady countdown from ten. He knows ‘ice’ and ‘snow’ and ‘wind’ and ‘rain’, and for a moment he thinks he hears it from the other side of the door, tossed with a harsh accent between the soldier’s open mouths. ‘Ice,’ they repeat, in soft argument. ‘Ice, ice, ice.’

There’s one last rattling blow to the door, a gloved fist against the metal, and then they begin to move back across the platform. Dean’s eyes open to the sudden shift of Cas’ weight. He stumbles up and onto his feet, frantically tugging at Dean’s hand. Dean allows him to reposition them both, pulling him along the wall and into the darkened corner at the farthest end of the train car.

Cas eyes the bullet holes as if he’s mentally tracking the angle of the shot and the length of the shadows. They sit side by side, with their knees pressed against their chests, trying to tuck their bodies into what little bit of darkness they have left.

Cas settles his forehead against his knees, looking like a child braving a thunderstorm, but Dean can’t keep his eyes off the wall. The voices are growing closer again, along with the sound of boots on packed snow. It’s a familiar sound, like the rise and fall of Slavic accented Russian. He thought it was beautiful, at first, the flow of foreign syllables. It’s nothing like the lispy sounds of French or the finalities of German. But now, he thinks, he’d be happy to never hear it again.

The soldiers stop outside and he watches the shadows of their silhouettes as they each pass by. Dean presses his own hand to his mouth this time, muffling his breathing with gloves that smell of blood and paraffin. Cas has not moved an inch. He sits statuesque at Dean’s side, with only his body heat to provide any hint of life. 

A shadow passes over the nearby flurry of bullet holes, and Dean can almost see the color of the eye that bends to peak through. Dean’s lungs stutter to a halt as the solider adjusts to the dull light of the train car. He seems to stay there for a lifetime and Dean’s chest burns for air, but finally he straightens. 

The Cossack solider calls to his comrades with a note of confidence in his voice, but he still pauses at a few more holes in the wall as he passes by, just in case. 

Their voices begin to fade into the distance and Dean notices for the first time that he can no longer hear the sound of gunshots. Siberia is silent once more, and for a single, panicked moment, he wonders if he and Cas are the only two Americans left alive.

Dean can’t bring himself to speak. Their thighs are pressed together, but neither of them move. He’s not sure if he welcomes the body heat or if they’re both simply too terrified to put any distance between them. Part of him wants to light up that last cigarette, but every sound is amplified by the frozen metal. Even his inhale is bound to echo. 

Dean slowly becomes numb from the cold and the stillness, but Cas doesn’t seem to feel anything at all. He is looking at the wall, following the pinpoints of light against the metal as the sun slowly lowers behind them. Finally, when the light from the bullet holes turns as gold as Kansas wheat, Cas’ fingers begin to move.

He flexes and forces his hands into fists inside his gloves, rocking his feet back and forth within his boots. He rolls his neck with an audible click that Dean recognizes from his own stiff shoulders. It’s like watching a statue come to life and Dean doesn’t turn away. 

Slowly, as if testing the remains of the floor beneath his feet, he stands. He has the unmistakable posture of a solider, the iron spine that Dean could never quite replicate, even after basic training in Kent. He’s caught staring the second Cas glances down at him. Dean feels like a schoolboy again, looking away but not quick enough.

Cas holds out a hand, and Dean allows him to pull him to his feet, wincing slightly as the floor creaks under their weight. It sounds deafening, but Cas looks unconcerned. Dean stretches the best he can in the cramped boxcar, trying to keep his muscles from seizing. He feels like his limbs are full of lead, left to sink into his bones in the aftermath of his adrenaline surge. 

Cas is at the door, slowly pulling at his wooden reinforcements, and Dean’s blissful haze of frostbite and unexpected survival begins to fade. The sun will set in a matter of hours and after that they’re sure to freeze to death. Maybe that’s what Cas really wants and this whole thing was just an excise in dying peaceful. Dean’s too exhausted to question it, so he stands at his side and helps to remove the last pieces of wood. 

The door opens to the screech of steel and Cas tenses, just for a moment, still gripping the wheel above the handle. Dean has his hand on his rifle, as if expecting soldiers to burst through the walls. 

He’s not sure what Cas is waiting for, but clearly it comes and goes because he’s stepping through the doorway without a glance behind him. The Cossacks who searched the cars left the doors flung open and Dean can see straight down the length of the train. A few hundred yards away, darkness fades into a warm glow of light from the storage car.

Dean feels like a giant as he follows Cas through the train. He’s clumsy and weak from cold and the onset of hunger. Cas moves like he doesn’t have anything to focus on but the silence of his footsteps. He reminds him of the children he saw in Vladivostok, who could steal a slice of bread from a soldier’s open palm. He wonders if there’s kids like that out in Pennsylvania too. 

Dean nearly trips and falls onto the hard packed earth as Cas leads them out into a sunset. The forest is bathed in gold and nectarine orange, straight from the vine. For one single, frozen breath, Dean thinks it’s beautiful. He exhales and the spell is broken. Bodies litter the ground, clothed in the dull grey-blue coats of American infantry. 

“Oh,” Dean breathes, taking the first few stumbling steps towards a man lying on his back, looking up at the sky. 

Cas catches his arm. 

“He might be alive,” Dean says. His eyes are still open, they reflect in the light.

Cas’ fingers dig into his skin and he tugs hard, pulling him towards the trees. 

“No, I need to - ”

Cas turns him around with both hands on his collar, forcing Dean to look away from what remains of the battlefield. He shakes his head, just once, loosening his hold for long enough to wipe a tear from Dean’s cheek with a scrape of his woolen glove, before turning and marching towards the forest. 

Dean hastily wipes at his eyes, surprised by the sudden lump in his throat. He’s seen death before, he’s carried the bodies.

Despite the carnage, Cas doesn’t give him time to mourn for their countrymen. He’s already disappearing through the trees. 

The ground is softer in the forest, with thin stretches of ice that shatter like spun sugar under his boot. Cas weaves through the debris of broken branches like he’s following a trail he’s walked a hundred times. Dean follows closely, matching his footsteps print by print. 

He fingers the cigarette in his pocket and resigns himself to the knowledge that Sammy will receive a telegram with typewriter ink spelling out _M.I.A_. He always thought that Navy wives had a kinder lot. When a ship goes down, you know better than to hope. In the army, families can wait years on a set of dog tags. He hopes that Sam is smarter than that.

The sun has dipped low enough that they’re walking in the half-light when Dean begins to shiver. The cold sets in with the hunger and the shock and he feels it in his heart, like it’s pumping through his bloodstream. 

“Cassidy,” he rasps.

He doesn’t slow down. He doesn’t even turn to acknowledge him. 

“Cas,” he says again, and this time he stops. “I can’t do this anymore. Just let me - ”

His words stumble to a halt as his eyes adjust to the twilight of the forest. In front of him, a shelter of logs packed with dried mud is built into the ground, set along a natural dip in the earth. Inside, pitched meticulously along the guiding lines of the wall, is a canvas tent. There are rocks piled before the laced entrance, burnt charcoal black. 

Cas sets his hands on Dean’s shoulders, pretending he hasn’t heard a word, and guides him to sit. The ground is clear of frost and ice, and there is nothing but earth and dead leaves beneath him. Cas walks along the other side of the makeshift wall, out of sight, though Dean can still hear him. It’s as if he’s making an effort, letting Dean know how far away he is as he piles his arms with dry twigs snapped from low branches.

“Matches,” Dean says, when Cas kneels in front of him and begins to build the base for a fire. “I have matches.”

He holds out the book with shaking fingers and Cas tears out a set of two before folding it back into Dean’s palm. He strikes the matches on a soot-covered rock and holds them to a pine branch. Dean watches as the needles catch and sizzle, popping like distant gunfire or New Year’s crackers.

After a moment, Cas reaches forward and unlaces the flaps to the tent, revealing a pile of military-issue wool blankets and a series of rucksacks, damp but packed tight. He realizes in a distant kind of way that Cas must have been hiding out here for days before he returned to camp. He wonders what he hoped to accomplish, running from the battlefield and into the forest. It’s easy to be a deserter in France, where villages dot the countryside, but there’s nowhere to go in Siberia. 

Cas gestures him into the tent after pulling a blanket from the stack and wrapping it around his own shoulders. Dean watches for a moment as he tends to the fire, before crawling into the tent and pulling blanket after blanket onto himself. He pillows his head on an unfamiliar brown overcoat and the second Dean closes his eyes all thoughts of Cas’ plans fade into the dark. He falls asleep to the warmth of the fire and the smell of pine trees, like Christmas in Kansas.

—

He wakes to the nauseating ache of cold and to shadows cast by the dying flames of the campfire. With shaking hands, Dean opens the flaps of the tent and crawls out, reaching immediately for the kindling left stacked by the makeshift wall. He works twig after twig into the base of the fire where the stones glow brightest. 

He allows himself a moment tucked close enough to the flames for the smoke to sting his eyes and startle his breathing, before he stands and looks around their sunken shelter. 

The sun never does fully set, not yet anyway. Through some ironic trick of the seasons, the frost in Dean’s lungs is the end of summer in Siberia. The sky stays a distant haze of blue, like perpetual dusk, brightening the forest outside of the little circle of firelight. He doesn’t bother to look around, he already knows that Cas isn’t here. He does his best not to worry and it comes easier than he expects as exhaustion and hunger sap his energy. He crawls back into the tent, settling closer to the fire and curling in on himself beneath the pile of woolen blankets. 

Dean closes his eyes to fever dreams of Cossack soldiers and his little brother waving a wooden rifle and the next time he wakes, it’s dawn and Cas is stoking the flames. His cheeks are flushed and his cap is left drying on a pile of stones. Dean can’t bring himself to move, but Cas seems to know he’s awake. 

He rustles through his pockets, before moving to kneel at Dean’s side. Cas opens his hands like he’s been keeping a spring butterfly cupped in his palms. He has black bread wrapped in linen, dry from the cold and crumbling. Their rations don’t have anything that looks quite like that, but he’s too tired to ask where it came from. He expects there are as many Russian bodies laid out in the fields as there are Americans, anyway. 

Cas sets the bread aside and whisks a leather flask from inside of his coat. He packs it with the newly fallen snow piled at the base of one of the larger oak trees and leaves it close enough to the coals to melt into water. He pulls off his gloves, setting them aside to dry, and for the first time Dean can see the shine of scars along his knuckles and the backs of his hands. He looks away as Cas reaches for the bread, because despite everything, it still doesn’t feel right to stare. 

He hands Dean a small piece of bread and watches intently as he does his best to keep it down. He’s starving and light headed but the second he tastes rye, his stomach churns. Cas waits until Dean no longer has a hand pressed to his mouth before handing him the flask of lukewarm water. He takes small sips on instinct and Cas nods in approval.

He breaks off piece by piece, waiting each time until Dean has managed a few sips of water before handing him another. He seems well versed in starvation. Even with their mother dead and buried in the flatlands of Kansas and their father two-thirds into a fifth, his family never went hungry. 

Once half the bread is gone, Cas packs the flask with more snow and makes quick work of the rest, leaving not even crumbs behind. They both sit close to the fire, their knees to their chests, and every few minutes after Cas checks to see if he’s still awake, he hands Dean the water flask again. 

He feels fit to burst, like he’d swallowed a whole Thanksgiving dinner instead of half a ration of Russian black bread. He keeps drinking though, whenever Cas hands him the flask. He might be a farm boy where it matters, but Dean knows a man will die without water sooner than he’ll die from hunger. 

Once the sun rises high enough to shine over the low walls of their shelter, Cas stands and stretches out his arms and legs in the most methodical way, tilting left and right, bending forward at his waist. Dean finds himself smiling as he watches him, though he quickly schools his features as Cas kneels at his side and begins pulling the packs from the tent. He rearranges their contents, stuffing leather gloves into one pocket and leaving a thin, moth-eaten blanket folded on the ground.

Dean watches as he begins to pull steel stakes from the ground with bare hands, wrapping the waxed rope around their jagged edges. He knows he should offer to help, but he’s not quite ready to move from the remaining warmth of the fire and Cas doesn’t seem like he really needs another set of fumbling hands in the way of what is clearly a well-tested routine.

Cas packs up the tent in the same meticulous, practiced manner that he does everything. Dean has managed a few more sips of water by the time Cas carefully folds its many loose parts into a rucksack not unlike the one Dean left at camp.

He holds out one hand to pull Dean to his feet, and gestures at the remaining bag with the other. Dean shoulders it and reaches down to rub at the ache in his knee. Maybe next time, he’ll do some stretching of his own. 

Cas nods his head and they leave the last of the fire to burn itself out.

—

They walk until mid-day, when the sun is directly above them. Cas makes sure to keep the flask full of melting snow, but the water is ice cold without the fire to warm it and it sinks into Dean’s lungs. Eventually, though, he stops feeling it at all. 

He remembers overhearing a second lieutenant in Byelorussia describe the soldiers that they’d found out on the ice, half frozen to death and too far into the grips of hypothermia to save. He remembers hearing him say that they felt warm, as if the shock of their dying bodies offered them that one final solace. 

His hands don’t hurt when they curl into his pockets, they don’t feel like much of anything. Thinking that this may be his final chance to actually enjoy the nicotine rush before the delirium sets in, Dean stumbles to a stop and leans against the base of a fallen tree.

“Cas,” he calls. “Cas, wait.”

He fumbles with his cigarette and searches for a dry match among the pack. Cas watches him, silent, as he struggles to get the cigarette lit. 

He reaches out after Dean’s second wasted match and pries the little paper bill from his fingers. He leans in close, gently rolling the match along the wool cuff of his sleeve, before striking it hard against the cloth. Dean hums in approval as the match flares to life, but Cas is already leaning forward, cupping his hand around the back of Dean’s neck to keep him still. He holds the flame to the crumbled end of the cigarette and Dean inhales.

He blows smoke up towards the sky, groaning at the familiar bite of tobacco. He breathes deep and holds it until his chest burns. 

“Here,” he says, holding out the cigarette for Cas to take.

Cas shakes his head, but sits beside him anyway, crossed legged on the crackling leaves. Dean shrugs his shoulders and takes another drag, exhaling through his nose until there’s nothing left to stamp out. 

Dean begins to stand, but Cas stops him with a soft touch to his knee. He unwraps another piece of cloth from the folds of his coat, revealing little slivers of dried meat. He hands two to Dean and keeps one for himself, tucking the rest back into his pocket.

“Thanks, Cas.” Dean scarfs the first bit of jerky down far too quickly, but he works slowly on the second, chewing on it as they walk and savoring the taste. 

Cas’ frequent water breaks are now peppered with little offers of food pulled from the depths of his uniform. He hands off pieces of black bread and flat, flavorless crackers. Once, he even hands Dean a dried apricot, like the kinds they bake into harvest bread back home.

Dean has long since settled into the monotony of marching, the trance that comes to soldiers after the first few miles are behind them, when suddenly Cas stops. He grabs Dean hard by the shoulders and pulls him down behind the thorny branches of a cypress shrub. Cas’ hand is back over his mouth, a repeat gesture that would have Dean swinging in any other world. Here though, in an unfamiliar forest with the sudden audible crunch of boots on the dry ground, Dean is thankful for it.

Cas peeks through the gaps in the branches as he quickly sheds his pack and over-coat, stripping down to a light brown uniform that Dean hadn’t noticed beneath the layer of imported American wool. Cas reaches for his rifle and sets one finger to his lips, gesturing for him to stay.

“Cas,” he mouths, frantic with the sudden realization that Cas is getting ready to stand. “No.”

Cas gives him one last pleading look, before climbing to his feet.

Dean hears a distant shout of Russian and the sounds of weapons being cocked. He flips onto his stomach, watching through the branches as Cas holds up a single hand in greeting. The Russian soldiers are wearing long coats of dusty brown, with black accents to match the red of Cas’ sleeves.

Cas lowers his hand and begins to speak. His voice is deep, his spine is set to a general’s rigidity, and the two soldiers quickly lower their weapons. Cas’ Russian sounds beautiful, the way it did when Dean first stepped foot in Siberia. They speak for a moment longer, and Dean squeezes his eyes shut, unable to tell their voices apart. 

After a moment, Cas gesture with his hand and the two men nod in aborted agreement and disappear back through the trees. Cas watches them go, standing with his hands clasped behind his back. Once the sounds of their footsteps fade back into the silence of Siberia, Cas crouches behind the bush, digging through his pack and producing a black overcoat. He hands it to Dean, refusing to meet his eyes.

Dean takes the hint, shedding his American uniform and wrapping himself in the nondescript black overcoat. Cas is changing into a dark grey uniform with medals pinned to the breast, working quickly as if he expects more soldiers to appear at a moment’s notice.

The second Dean’s coat is buttoned, hiding the light blue of his under shirt, Cas is pulling him roughly to his feet and leading him west towards the setting sun. 

They set up camp in a clearing of tree roots and dead leaves, a mile away from the soldiers who stumbled across their path. Dean is exhausted and the second Cas has their tent standing he crawls through the opening and wraps himself in every blanket he pulls from his pack. Cas doesn’t start a fire, not at first. He sits at the entrance to the tent and listens with his eyes closed.

Dean sits hunched forward against the cold and watches him.

“Do you speak English?” He asks, finally.

Cas opens his eyes, an apologetic quirk of his lips. He looks tired.

“English?” He says again, slower this time.

Cas shakes his head, his hair falling into his eyes. “No.”

“Okay,” Dean says, nodding to himself. “Okay, alright. So you’re a Rusky after all.” He thinks for a moment, tracing his fingers along the nylon floor, feeling the bumps and grooves of the earth beneath them. Cas doesn’t fidget, but he doesn’t meet his eyes either. 

“Cossack?” He asks, finally, dreading the answer. 

Cas gestures vaguely at his uniform. “Bolshevik,” he answers, a hint of exasperation in his tone, as if he expects Dean to know better.

Dean shuffles himself towards the entrance until he’s close enough to grab a fist full of snow in his gloves. It’s old snow, damp and melting, and he does his best to say the Russian word from memory. He always struggled with this one, more than he had with the flirtatious little phrases he learned from women in Vladivostok. The way Cas looks, though, makes him think he must have gotten close.

Cas nods, repeating it back to him.

“Snow,” Dean says, in English this time. 

“Snow,” Cas says, with just a little too much emphasis at the start.

“Close enough,” he murmurs, before pointing to himself. “Dean.” It’s easier than Winchester by half, and Cas won’t know the difference either way.

“Dean,” he repeats and this time it sounds close to perfect.

He gestures to Cas, a questioning tilt to his head.

He looks away, tugging idly on the stolen set of dog tags still slung around his neck. “Cas,” he answers finally, a questioning lilt to his voice.

“Yeah, alright,” Dean says, settling himself on the floor of the tent and leaving enough space for another body at his side. “You can be Cas for now.”

—

They keep a steady pace as they march across the Siberian landscape. Cas seems to count their miles by markers that only he can see. They rarely stop walking before sundown, even when Dean lags behind from a reliable combination of hunger and exhaustion. Cas will simply hand him the flask and tuck a dried apricot into his palm. He knows better by now than to eat it all at once.

Dean passes the time by exhausting his Russian vocabulary and exchanging English words in return. Soon he relies instead on naming objects they can point at - _tree, sky, rifle, boot._ They quickly run out of those too, but it doesn’t stop him from trying to find more words to trade back and forth in an attempt to fill the silence.

He prefers not to think of where Cas’ uniform came from, whose body those dog tags were stolen off of. Russian vocabulary words and English nouns are a far simpler pastime. 

They’re sitting around a fire, sharing another slice of black bread between them, when Cas catches his hand and says, “ _Ruka._ ” 

Dean can’t roll his r’s like the Russians do and he struggles to repeat it back to him. Cas nearly smiles, though it’s barely a twitch of his lips. 

“Hand,” Dean offers. He repeats it easily and Dean sighs, playing at exasperated. “I bet you were a nerd like my little brother in school.”

Cas hums a sentence of Russian consonants. 

“Yeah, yeah.” He says, reaching for the water flask. “Whatever you say.”

—

The silence of the forest can become so oppressive that Dean takes to talking to himself once he’s out of vocabulary words to sift through. 

“My baby would make quick work of this,” he says, breathing heavy but smiling at the idea of his beloved Murgese mare that their father bought off of an Englishman out in Fort Worth. “She wouldn’t like the cold though. Italian bred, meant for that seaside heat. That’s what Sammy told me anyway, and with all the books he gets his hands on, he’s usually right.” 

Cas stops and studies him at first with a long, hard look. He seems to decide for himself that Dean just needs to ramble on because he nods his head and continues to walk.

Dean distracts himself for a moment by picturing every step in his baby’s grooming regimen, from her mane to her hooves. He’d shoed her with the help of the farrier in town just before he left for England. Dean counts out the months on his fingers, imagining it can’t be farther along than August, and thinks that Sammy will have to bring her in for another fitting soon. 

“He’d better remember, every six weeks,” Dean says out loud. “She’s always been prone to cracking if you don’t keep a close eye on her. Brought her once to the farrier in Kansas City and never made that mistake again. I can’t believe he’s still in business.” 

Cas nods his head like he’s listening and Dean smiles in response. “Bet you could shoe a horse,” he says, just a little out of breath. “If you can survive in Siberia, you can probably do that much at least.” 

He eventually quiets down, after another half-mile of idle chatter, because his breathing turns heavy and he can hardly keep from coughing. Cas seems to notice and slows his pace, allowing Dean to catch up for the first time all afternoon.

“Thanks,” he says, and Cas nods his head, just the same.

—

They’ve been marching all day in the light mist of oncoming rain. Dean is damp and exhausted, lagging farther and farther behind Cas with nothing but trees to cut the scenery. He stops walking, finally, his hands resting on his knees. 

“Dean?” Cas says, jogging to his side.

“Where are we going?” He asks, keeping his eyes closed. 

Cas watches, waiting for an explanation.

“Where,” he snaps, gesturing at the forest around them. “Vladivostok? Moscow? Petrograd? Where?” 

Cas nods. “Where,” he repeats, as if he’s considering it. 

“Bolshevik,” he says finally, pointing behind them, to the east. “Cossack,” he says, pointing to the south. Cas looks out in front of them and gestures through the trees. “Snow,” he decides.

“Right, okay, so we’re definitely going to die out here. That’s great.”

“Dean,” Cas says, with a hand on his shoulder. “Walk.”

“Christ, I need to get you some better vocabulary words.” 

Cas pats him on the back and continues forward. 

—

It’s well before sundown when Cas darts through the trees, inspecting the base of each trunk like he’s looking for something. Dean doesn’t bother calling after him. Instead, he carefully follows the prints of Cas’ footsteps through the damp leaves, like a half-hearted game of follow-the-leader. Cas is already well ahead of him when Dean finally notices the ropes. There are rabbit snares hanging from the bare branches of every other tree. Some are still set, left undisturbed, and others host the remains of furs, picked clean of meat by scavengers.

Cas reappears carrying three limp hares by the ears. He catches Dean’s eye and motions towards a clearing where the remains of campfires appear like charcoal smudges against the ground. Dean is suddenly starving, ravenous and impatient. 

“You make the fire,” Dean says, pointing to Cas and imitating the striking of a match. “I’ll skin.”

Cas watches him for a moment before answering with, “Fire.”

“Alright, fine.” Dean hands over his book of matches. “You drive a hard bargain.”

“No, Dean,” Cas says, pushing the book back into his hand. “Fire.”

Cas doesn’t wait for an argument. Instead, he whisks a hunting knife from the inside of his coat and kneels before a flat rock with white cut marks engraved into the face. The stone is blood-stained in a shade that looks almost like sand, and before Dean can even open the book of matches, Cas neatly takes off the rabbit’s head and begins to skin it. 

“You’ll want to take the innards out first,” Dean says, collecting dry twigs from the branches of neighboring trees.

Cas pauses and glances at him with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, alright.” Dean murmurs, rolling his eyes. “Do it your way then.”

Cas has all three rabbits skinned by the time Dean’s fire is worth more than a few sparks. Dean spent more time than most boys his age in the kitchen, skinning rabbits for roasts and stew while Sammy watched on in distaste. He would take his time and hum along to the old country lullabies his mother used to sing him. If he closes his eyes to the sharp tang of blood and firewood, he can almost feel the flour on his fingertips and Sammy tugging at his shirt.

Cas works like a solider, cleaning the offal and laying them out to cook on a stone next to the coals. Dean always tossed the insides to the chickens, but it seems silly to even think of now, as his hands shake with hunger.

“Rabbit,” Dean says absentmindedly as he rotates a makeshift skewer over the fire to keep the branch from catching.

“Rabbit,” Cas repeats, as he works the last of the meat off the bones. He doesn’t look up, just repeats, “Rabbit, fire,” like he’s testing out the sounds.

“Soon enough you’ll talk as good as me.” Dean assures him.

Cas lays the pelts over stones as well, setting them as close as he dares to the flames. 

It seems like it takes an eternity to cook. Cas sets up their tent while they wait, pausing only to hand Dean a stone to drive the stakes into the ground. He suspects it’s a calculated attempt at distraction, because Cas has never asked for his help before. 

Cas inspects the skewers closely, sticking his blade through the meat to check the color. When he gives the first piece his nod of approval, he hands the whole of the stick over to Dean. 

Dean takes a bite and moans at the taste. It’s unseasoned and gamey, but right now it’s better than any chess pie. The heat sears his tongue but he can hardly bring himself to wait for it to cool. Dean nibbles charred bits of meat from the end of the stick as he reaches for another. 

“Dean,” Cas says as he chews through a pale slither of offal. “Slow.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m going slow.” 

Cas hands him a flask of water, and Dean hums a bit. “In a minute.”

“Dean.” 

“Drink,” Dean says, taking a grudging swig from the flask. “You might as well learn it, instead of just saying my name with that look on your face. Drink,” he repeats.

For a minute Cas looks like he might not say it, a silent protest to Dean’s perpetual attitude. “Dean,” he says finally. “Drink.”

—

“You know what I would do, if I made it back alive?” Dean asks. They’ve spent the morning walking in relative silence, brought on by Cas’ careful detours through the trees. He wonders who he’s more afraid of encountering in the woods – the Cossacks or what remains of the White Army?

As usual, Cas doesn’t answer.

He stares up at the fawn of tree branches above him, crystallized with ice and the slush of week-old snow. His feet are warmer now than they’ve been in days and blessedly dry from where Cas packed the inside of his boots with rabbit pelts. 

“I’d move to Texas, that’s what I’d do. It don’t snow much in Kansas, but it snows enough.” 

“Dean,” Cas says with a soft question to his voice. 

“Sam wouldn’t mind. He can marry a nice country girl. One with manners. We grow ‘em mean out in Kansas.” He sighs then, his eyes pinched closed. “Fuck, I miss Kansas.” 

“Kansas,” Cas repeats slowly, curiously, his voice nearly lost to the wind. 

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Kansas. It’s a place. Vladivostok, Moscow, Kansas.” 

Cas says a word in Russian, slow and careful so that Dean can hear every lispy vowel. He thinks he knows what it means without having to ask. 

“Home,” he says, nodding. 

“Home,” Cas repeats. “Home.” 

“Kansas is my home,” he says, thumping his hand on his own chest. “Cas?”

“Home?” Cas asks, for confirmation. “Petrograd.” 

Dean winces, but Cas doesn’t seem to notice. Even sequestered in Siberia, Dean knows Petrograd is set to fall. Rumor had it that German troops were days away from the city’s borders, with its people left starving and defenseless. He can’t imagine there’s anything left of it now. 

He’s not seen much of Russian cities, so all he can really picture is stone and ice and ashy cathedrals. When Cas sighs the word Petrograd, he wonders what it is that he thinks of.

—

Dean gets used to walking, after a while. Before they were cornered by the Cossacks, American soldiers did little for the war effort other than wait. Dean has waited in caravans and train cars and in the barracks of transport ships. He’s waited on grassy knolls in France and in military tents in Vladivostok. It was maddening. But when they walk, Dean feels none of the anticipation and nervous, pent-up energy that he felt on the train to their Siberian station. His head is clear of everything but the next step and each frigid inhale. 

He thinks he could go on like this for months, maybe even years. He could march through Siberia, pulling rabbits from traps and setting up camp, lighting fires while Cas grimaces at his technique, all until Sammy is grown and set to marry that whip-smart blonde from down the street. 

Sometimes, when he’s beginning to fall behind Cas’ mountain-man pace, Dean likes to watch him. He’s light on his feet when he walks, barely making a sound at all as he follows his invisible yellow brick road through the trees. Dean wonders how many times he’s crossed this forest and how many times he’ll cross it again before winter comes.

When the sun first begins to set, filtering gilded light through the trees, Dean falls back just a bit. In this light, with his hair curled into damp ringlets, Cas looks ethereal, like he belongs here. The soldiers in Vladivostok told him about the fairies that live in the forests, disguised as beautiful women that lead travelers astray. 

Dean snorts a laugh at the thought and Cas pauses, turning to look back at him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Dean says. “Keep on walking. It’s almost dark.”

—

Dean hums to himself without even realizing it. He’s used to working that way on the ranch, singing to keep his brain busy while his body does the heavy lifting. He’s three bars into a song he borrowed from the snowy streets of his childhood when Cas stops walking. 

“What is it?” He asks, pulling his rifle from his shoulder.

Cas looks at him, eyebrows raised. “Dean,” he says, gesturing vaguely. 

“What?”

Cas continues to stare, as if he’s not sure exactly what to say. 

“Is it the singing?” He asks finally. “Singing,” he says, slowly so Cas can catch the syllables, before letting out an audible approximation of the _doh re mi_ he learned in the schoolhouse.

He nods. “Singing.”

“I know,” he flashes the smile he uses at the shop girls back home. “I’m like an angel, aren’t I?” 

Cas watches him for a moment and says something in Russian, a one-word wisp of consonants with that slight roll of the tongue that Dean can never manage. 

“Thank you?” Dean offers. “I think.”

Cas nods his head and begins walking again. 

He sings louder now that he knows he has an audience. He cycles through all the Christmas songs he can remember, although it’s nowhere near December. The cold has given his voice a deeper, scratchy quality that he isn’t used to hearing. On certain notes, he sounds just like his father. 

“What about you, Cas?” He asks, falling into step beside him. “Any songs from Russia?”

When Cas tilts his head, Dean points at him. “Singing?” 

He shakes his head. “No. No singing.”

“Aw, come on. I bet you know a Russian song or two.”

“No singing,” he repeats, so Dean belts out a lascivious old shanty in retaliation. Cas shakes his head, an exasperated expression on his face, and although Dean knows he can’t understand the words, he suspects he gets the point.

—

After days of damp and wet earth, they wake one morning to dry air that never breaks. The ground isn’t thawing so much as it’s simply drying out. It’s a strange thing, camping on permafrost after settling in to melted snow. Most nights he wakes thirsty and it hurts just to inhale. 

“Water?” He asks, the words stuck in his throat. 

He knows Cas is awake, just like he knows it’s hours from morning despite the dawn-blue haze of light on the horizon. He wonders, sometimes, if one night he’ll simply wake to darkness or if the change will be gradual, a slow loss of summer light. He’s heard all about the dead of winter and the nights that never end, and he knows they’re coming soon. 

Cas sits up, making a questioning noise, like he hadn’t quite heard him.

“The water,” Dean repeats, his voice rough with sleep. “Where is it?” 

Cas gestures to the pack set closest to the entrance of the tent. “There is it.”

Dean shocks himself by laughing and winces when he swallows dry. He reaches for the flask and gulps down cold water, aware that Cas is watching his every move. 

“What?” He asks, finally.

“What,” Cas repeats, frowning.

Dean smiles, rubbing at his eyes. “There _it is._ ”

“Ah,” Cas breathes, nodding his head. “There it is.”

“You were close though,” he says, lying back down with his head pillowed on hard earth. He says goodnight in Russian and Cas murmurs it back to him, his eyes already closed.

—

Dean idly writes his name in the dirt. With the ground growing drier the farther north they go, Dean reverts to his childhood pass-time of tracing shapes with the end of a sharp stick in lieu of pencils and paper. When they were young, he and Sammy used to crouch at the edge of Bobby’s field after harvest had turned the soil to dust and draw little cave-man depictions of their lives. 

He doesn’t feel much like drawing, but he hasn’t seen much of English letters in what feels like a lifetime. Cas watches curiously as he digs his stick deeper and begins on ‘Winchester.’ 

“What is it?” Cas asks. 

“Dean.” He says, pointing at his name. He reads it out for him, letter by letter, and Cas nods in understanding. 

“Hey, you wanna learn the alphabet?” He asks, after a moment. He writes out a shaky ABC and gestures for Cas’ benefit.

“Yes,” he says.

Cas settles in beside him with a stick of his own and Dean begins writing out a clumsy rendition of the alphabet that hung on his schoolhouse wall. He always did have shit penmanship and the rocky earth isn’t doing him any favors. 

Dean points at each letter and approximates the sound he associates with them. Cas traces his letters with a surprisingly steady hand, murmuring the sounds as he works. 

“Dean,” he says, tracing his name again. 

“Yeah, you’ll get there eventually. Show me the Russian one?” 

The fire is healthy and bright, feeding off of the dry timber instead of popping and flickering its way through the night. Dean watches carefully as Cas begins tracing out a series of Russian characters under his own attempt at the alphabet.

“Yeah, alright. Some of the same letters, none of the same sounds. Got it.” 

“Dean,” he says, tracing out a Russian word. 

“Oh, that’s my name then?”

Cas makes a noise deep in his throat, like he isn’t fully sure. 

“Sort of my name, then.”

He looks up. “Sort of?”

“Sort of,” Dean says with a nod. “You are sort of Cas.”

He nods, considering this. “Sort of,” he agrees and Dean smiles.

—

Dean remembers girls in Lawrence cutting strips of cloth from the hems of their finest dresses and handing them off to their sweethearts in uniform as a comfort in the trenches. Boys by the hundreds went to war with hair ribbons and pieces of lace collars and silky chiffon clutched between their fingers, but he can’t imagine that it did them much good in the end. 

Dean watches Cas set up camp and bundles himself close to the fire as he hums the tune to a lullaby. He never had a piece of cloth for comfort, but he hasn’t thought once about the girls he used to court, the shy kisses exchanged in the brick alley behind the post office. He thinks of nothing but Sam and Bobby and food. Good lord, does he think of food. Constantly, like a starving man. And sometimes, in the gentle dusk of night, he thinks of winter, and the fear sets his pulse racing.

“Hey Cas,” he begins, a sudden nagging thought at the back of his head. “Do you have anyone at home? A girl, a wife?” 

“Wife?” Cas asks, squinting. 

Dean mimes a ring around his forth finger. “Yeah, do you have a wife?” He hums the hymn of church bells that used to sound on Sundays. 

“Ah,” Cas says. “No.” 

“Dean?” he asks after a moment, warming his hands by the fire. “Do you have wife?” He looks worried, like he hadn’t considered it before.

“No, God no, don’t worry. I was always too busy to really court a girl. Then I was sent here, with you.” 

“I am sorry,” he says, softly. 

“Don’t be. No widows this way. Besides, love’s no comfort in war, is it?” Ribbon and thread can do little against bullet holes and mustard gas and the growing, looming start of winter. 

Cas shrugs like he understands, but Dean knows he doesn’t.

—

Without the damp and humidity of the south, it gets even colder. The dry air is soon accompanied by wind that leaves Dean’s skin red and sore to the touch. The seasons are beginning to turn, and Dean can’t tell if it’s his imagination or if the sun is setting earlier each day. He’s paranoid now of the nineteen hours of darkness their colonel once promised. 

Cas catches him shivering as he feeds dried leaves into their fledgling fire. “Dean,” he says softly, shrugging off his inner layer, a wool coat knit white but turned grey with use. He holds it out as instruction more than offering.

“I’m fine,” he insists, clenching his jaw. The cold comes from the inside these days, seeping through his chest and soaking in. It makes him shake and shiver and at night he breaks out in sweats that freeze to his skin by morning.

“No,” Cas says. “You are cold.” 

“Cas, I’m fine. I’m not taking your coat,” he juts his chin out, an attempt to convince him. “You’ll freeze.”

“I am Russian,” he says with what almost passes as a smile.

Cas wins the short, silent battle of eye contact and Dean finally pulls on the knit jacket. It’s still warm and slightly damp to the touch. He wraps his uniform around himself and sits closer to the fire just as Cas murmurs something in Russian, a frustrated sigh. He gets up and adjusts himself next to Dean, leaning in close. With one hand he digs out the lighter, waterproof cover that he keeps in his pack, coal black and distinctly German. He wraps it length-wise around their shoulders, shifting even closer.

“Well alright,” Dean says, and his tone must be sufficient translation because Cas scoffs beside him.

“You’ll freeze,” he mimics. 

“You’re getting too good at English. I’m cutting you off.”

Cas doesn’t answer. He leans forward enough to jostle the fire and adjust the wood before settling back into Dean’s side. 

He lets himself relax into it, after a moment, the unfamiliar comfort of body heat. It reminds him of sitting in that abandoned train car and the weight of Cas’ hand against his lips. 

After a small meal of leftover rabbit meat packed in waxed cloth, Cas adds a final layer of kindling to the fire and nods towards the tent. Dean takes the hint and begins his nightly routine of burying himself under a layer of blankets, expecting Cas to continue his vigil at the fire. Instead, he crawls in behind him and begins to unlace his boots. 

“You’re going to sleep already?”

“Sleep,” Cas confirms and instead of lying on his back, a hands-width away, he lifts up Dean’s makeshift wool cocoon and slides beneath it. 

It was once such a familiar feeling, lying in bed with another person tucked against him. For most of his life, it was Sammy, who grew like a weed once he hit the age of twelve and always ended up sprawled over his body come morning. Sometimes, it was the farmer’s daughter from down the road, blue-eyed and slight and meaner than fire. They knew better than to be caught in the same bed past dawn, so she always slipped out before the roosters could call.

This doesn’t feel all that different, but he can’t help but tense up at the unexpected contact.

“Dean,” Cas says, shifting onto his side, his back warm and solid against him. “Sleep.”

—

Dean wakes with Cas’ hands on his shoulders, keeping his thrashing body pinned to the ground and repeating his name.

“That’s all I hear you say, these days.” He’s barely out of his nightmare, a recreation of the Cossack slaughter that he heard from the safety of the train car. Only in his dream, as he sat crouched in the shadows, he could hear the tremble of his brother’s voice from the battlefield. 

“Dean,” he says again, but Dean ignores him, shrugging off Cas’ hand as he forces himself to sit up. 

He rubs at his eyes, avoiding Cas’ unblinking stare. “Nightmare,” he says.

Cas nods, like this word doesn’t need a translation. “Nightmare,” he repeats.

Dean crawls to the entrance of the tent and stands on unsteady feet as he gathers his bearings. He walks into the forest to relieve himself while simultaneously escaping Cas’ careful attention. He knows that he’s starting to unravel, he can feel Siberia pulling at his seams. Cas watches his every move like he’s just waiting for the moment when he finally falls apart. 

When he returns to camp, Cas is trying his best to boil water in a tin cup. 

“Sit,” he says evenly, not even glancing at Dean. “Eat.”

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Dean says, reaching for his ration of black bread, topped with the prunes that Cas has been saving for especially bad days. He hated prunes when he was a kid, but now he savors every bite. 

“Dean,” Cas says gently, handing him the tin cup with a glove wrapped around the handle. 

“Thanks,” he says. Usually, Dean does his best to use whatever Russian vocabulary he can think of, but he just doesn’t have enough energy this morning to shape his syllables. 

Cas seems to notice. “You are welcome.”

They’re silent for a moment, taking their time over their rations and melting what snow they can find into drinking water, until finally Cas says, “Sammy?” 

Dean’s head snaps up so quickly that they both hear the tired click of his vertebrae. “Where did you hear that?” 

“Your nightmare,” Cas says, fitting his English together like a puzzle. “Sammy.” 

Dean’s throat clicks when he swallows. “My brother,” he says. “Sammy’s my brother. Here.”

He reaches for the stick Cas has been using to kindle the fire. He draws four figures on the hard ground, hoping that these at least might be universal. “Mother, father, sister, brother,” he says.

Cas nods, like he understands. 

“Big?” He asks. “Small?”

“Small,” Dean says. “He’s my little brother.”

“Little brother,” Cas repeats with a distant look. He picks his words carefully. “I am little brother,” he tells Dean.

“You are _a_ little brother,” Dean corrects him, in an automatic sort of way.

“I am a little brother,” Cas repeats, nodding his thanks.

Dean’s chest aches and he wishes Cas hadn’t said anything at all. He looks down at his rations, suddenly unable to stomach the rest.

“You are,” he says slowly, like he’s practicing still, unaware of Dean’s broken heart. “You are a big brother.”

Dean smiles, despite himself. “Yeah, I am.”

Cas nods to himself and returns to his food. Dean watches him for a moment, and wonders if he has an older brother somewhere, worried sick and missing the way his mop of curls always falls into his eyes or how he smiles like it’s a surprise each time. He imagines the telegram Cas’ phantom older brother might receive; _M.I.A_ , never to be seen again.

Or maybe they’ll both be dead, before this war is over. Maybe his brother is already buried in the rubble of Petrograd. Maybe he’s got more than one.

Dean gulps the water down, allowing it to scald his tongue, and he counts his one and only true blessing. Sammy is safe in Kansas and Dean has no letters to wait on.

—

One morning they wake and the sun doesn’t rise. 

He thinks for a moment that it was the dry air that woke him, the thirst or the cold. But Cas is no longer beside him, sleeping shallow and warm, so he knows it must be dawn. Cas wakes like clockwork and Dean can see his shadow against the wall of the tent, jumping and stuttering by the light of the campfire. 

He stares at Cas’ silhouette and takes a deep breath as his throat works itself into a bowline knot. Tears burn behind his eyes and Dean wants nothing more than to scream and shout and pull down the tent around him because what the fuck are they supposed to do now? Overnight, Siberia has plunged into the oblivion of winter, and Dean mourns for the sun.

“Dean,” Cas says softly, untying the flap and peaking inside. 

Dean refuses to pull his hands from his eyes, sticky and wet with tears. He hopes that Cas will just go away and leave him to suffocate to death as his breathing begins to hitch and his body thrums with panic.

“Dean,” he says, a little more urgently this time. He crawls into the tent, not bothering to kick off his boots or lace the entrance closed. Instead he lays at Dean’s side and pulls their bodies together, chest to chest, his hand cupping the back of Dean’s neck. 

Cas is repeating one word over and over again, taking deep, steadying breaths in Dean’s ear like it’s a demonstration. Dean tries to mimic him, to get his breathing under control, but he thinks he must be dying, his heart finally caving to the cold. 

“Dean,” Cas says desperately, before pulling back far enough for Dean to see his face by the soft glow of the fire. Cas breathes loudly in through his nose, and exhales through his mouth, nodding in approval as Dean does the same.

He closes his eyes and forces himself to follow Cas’ slow pattern, in and out. He’s murmuring gentle, encouraging words that Dean hasn’t heard before, but the sound is calming, distant. He focuses on Cas’ voice and he breathes. 

His hand strokes absentmindedly through the shorter strands of hair at the back of Dean’s neck and eventually, when his chest no longer aches and tears slide silently down his temple, Cas sighs his name. 

Dean’s face is tucked into the crook of Cas’ throat, where he smells of winter cold and sweat, a cloying combination that settles on soldiers after a few weeks in Siberia. 

Cas is trying to say something in English, mumbling words that Dean doesn’t quite understand. “One,” Cas says, before sighing, a frustrated sound. “The sun,” Cas says. “The sky.” 

Dean can’t help but smile against his skin, though he doesn’t say a word.

“The sun,” he begins again. “It is slow.” 

“I noticed, Cas. It’s winter now,” he says thickly. 

“No,” Cas says, followed by a groan of Russian words. “One.” 

He stops trying after that. They lay silently, with Dean’s cheek pressed against the scratchy cotton of his uniform. His eyes flutter open and closed, lulled by Cas’ body heat and soft patterns he traces against his shoulders. But before he eases himself back into sleep, the sun begins to rise. Dean breathes in sharply through his nose at the sight of it, white-gold and glowing. He whispers a barely audible, “Oh.”

“One,” Cas repeats, his thumb resting on Dean’s wrist. 

“One hour, huh.” Dean mumbles. “It’s one hour later now.”

Cas nods his head. “No winter.”

“Not yet,” he says. “But it will be soon.”

Cas doesn’t respond and they watch the soft glow of the sunrise as it bleeds into the tent. 

—

Dean is staring into the fire as he tries to focus on breathing normally, in and out. They set up camp early today, well before the sun even moved from the center of the sky, and Cas goes about his normal routine as if this isn’t completely out of character for him. Dean knows better than to protest. 

He catches the sideways glances Cas keeps throwing his way, the small frown at his lips as he carefully monitors Dean’s eating habits. He’s slowed his pace over the past few days, falling into step beside him instead of gallivanting off a few yards ahead. Dean should be annoyed by it, but mostly he’s just tired. He hardly notices when Cas reaches over to catch Dean’s hand.

“What’d you want?”

Cas is looking closely at his hand, inspecting the thin, bruised skin and the pattern of blue veins that crawls around his palm. 

“I’m fine,” he says, pulling away.

“Dean,” Cas says, and this time he doesn’t sound exasperated or impatient. Dean knows that tone, it’s the same one he used when Sam caught a bad cold a few years back that got into his chest and stuck.

“I’m fine. And hey, look. When I do end up dying out here, at least you bought me a few weeks and a fighting chance.” He knows Cas doesn’t understand a word, but Dean feels better for saying it. 

Cas says something then, a soft whisper of Russian, and Dean would give their last apricot to know what it was. 

“We’ll be fine,” he says, instead. Cas doesn’t look at him. He reaches for Dean’s hands again and folds them into his palms, breathing warmth between their fingers. 

“We have a fire for that, you know?” He doesn’t pull away and Cas doesn’t answer him.


	2. Chapter 2

The sun is just beginning to set when they stumble upon a clearing of felled fir trees, and a few steps later, a beautiful brick mansion. He can smell the wood burning through the chimney and shadows are just beginning to flicker to life behind thick paned glass windows. 

“Cas,” Dean whispers, but he has a hand out, motioning for silence. 

They creep up to the front steps and Dean has his rifle raised before Cas blocks his entry with a hissed, “Stay.”

“No way, Cas.” 

“Dean.” He says his name through clenched teeth. “Please.”

“Not a chance, Gretel,” he snaps, barely managing a whisper. “I’m not letting you waltz into the creepy fucking cottage we found in the middle of nowhere without backup.” 

Cas is half way through a barrage of Russian when the door swings open. Dean has his rifle aimed and his finger on the trigger before Cas can shout, “Dean, stop!” 

“Dean?” Echoes the man in the doorway. He’s leaning against the doorframe, dressed in military issued under garments with a thick robe cinched at his waist. 

“Well, little brother,” he says in English, his face twisting into a grin. “You have had an interesting few months.”

Dean turns to Cas, his eyebrows raised. “Brother?” He asks.

Cas is pinching the bridge of his nose. “Sort of.”

“He’s _sort of_ your brother?” Dean repeats, incredulous.

“Half-brother, I believe is the phrase he’s searching for. Do come in, by the way.” The man steps aside, gesturing into the darkness of the house. “I’m freezing my tits off just standing here.” 

Cas mutters to himself as he taps his boots on the entryway, shaking off the snow. His brother shouts a response, many rooms away, in lyrical Russian that sounds at odds with the rigid accents that Dean is used to hearing in the army. He wonders for a moment if they grew up in the same house or even the same city.

They step into the hall and the whole house smells of freshly baked bread. Dean’s stomach flips pleasantly at the thought of a meal that doesn’t crumble in his hands. He’s ready to follow the warmth and the distant crackle of a hearth fire until Cas grabs his elbow, pulling him close.

“Dean,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “He is not solider.”

“He is not _a_ soldier,” Dean corrects him on instinct. Cas repeats after him, just the same. 

“He is not a solider.”

“Then what is he?”

Cas shrugs apologetically and Dean knows they’ve reached the limit of his vocabulary. 

“Right. Well I’m starving and I’d love to eat. So maybe we get our introductions over with, and have some bread.”

“Yes,” Cas says, frowning. “Bread and eat.”

“Close enough, buddy,” he says with a pat on his shoulder. Cas nods and leads them through the halls with a familiarity that Dean didn’t really expect. The house is laid out in a complex of doorways that is so foreign to the ranches of Dean’s childhood that he can hardly fathom the need for a home so meticulously partitioned. 

In the center of it all is a sitting room lined with expensive looking furs and stacks of drying firewood. There is almost no furniture left, as if it had all been packed away along with the portraits and picture frames, leaving nothing but shadows on the wallpaper. Cas’ brother is sprawled across the lone settee, his bare feet kicked up onto embroidered silk that is certainly worth more than anything Dean has ever touched. 

Cas says something in Russian and his brother gestures lazily at a standing bar in the corner of the room, laden with bread and cheese and dried meat. 

“We’re out of wine, I’m afraid,” he says. His accent is perfect, tinged with the kinds of British vowels that he’s used to hearing from the well-bred boys of the RAF.

Cas is carefully slicing bread and cheese, piling them in his hands and transferring half to Dean. He takes a seat on the floor, cross-legged in front of the fire, and turns to face him. 

“Slow,” he says. 

Dean rolls his eyes and does his best to chew before swallowing, but the bread is soft and warm and he moans at the taste of it. “Jesus.”

Cas hums in agreement.

“So,” his brother says loudly, crossing his ankles like it’s a grand gesture. “You may call me Gabriel. I’ve gathered that your name is Dean.”

“Yup.” Dean says, with his mouth full. He swears he sees Cas smile out of the corner of his eye. “So Cas tells me you’re not a solider. What are you, exactly?”

“Cas.” Gabriel repeats with a grin, though he doesn’t comment on it. “Well, I suppose once upon a time, I was something of a diplomat. Thanks to my baby brother and his naturally rebellious nature, I’ve become a temporary informant.”

Dean finished most of his bread in the time it took Gabriel to form his first condescending vowel. He stands by the bar, thumbing off slivers of cheese with his pocketknife. “So you’re a spy.” 

“I wouldn’t call it that.”

“You’re not a Bolshevik then?” He watches Cas’ eyes flicker up, glancing at Gabriel before turning to look at Dean.

He laughs loudly and pretends to wipe tears of mirth from his eyes. “Oh no, I’m really not. In fact, six weeks from now, I won’t even be Russian anymore. I have a one-way ticket to Paris, where I intend to live out the remainder of my life in the company of wine and women.” 

Dean is certain Cas can only understand a handful of words, but something in the way Gabriel says it makes him frown and bark something in impatient Russian.

“Dean,” Gabriel says, turning to him as if Cas had never spoken. “There is a wash room down the hall and to the right. The door is open, it’s impossible to miss. I have pales of water set over the fire in the kitchen. Why don’t you go clean up. I’m sure you could use it.”

Dean looks at Cas and he nods, gesturing towards the hall. “Go.”

He’s not sure why he tries to listen so closely for the sound of hushed voices. The walls are built thick against the cold and the sound of water sloshing through the tub drowns out everything that the brick hasn’t already muffled. So Dean focuses on enjoying the near scalding hot water and rubbing the grit from his hair. 

The second the water begins to cool, he climbs out, drying himself with the wool robe he finds hanging on the wash basin. He puts on his under garments, and eyes the rest of his uniform. Dean would love nothing more than to soak his clothes in the remnants of his filthy bath water and scrub at them with lye soap, but he doesn’t know when they’ll be leaving this place, and he can’t face the cold with damp clothing. So with a rueful glance at the basin, he pulls on his uniform and laces his boots. 

In the sitting room, Cas has a book open in his lap and he’s frantically scribbling notes with a heavy fountain pen. 

“Dean,” Gabriel says cheerfully, causing Cas to look up. “You wash up well. How about a shave?”

“No thanks,” he says, taking a seat at Cas’ side. “Helps against the cold.”

He tries to see what Cas is writing from the corner of his eye, but he can barely make it out in the flickering firelight. He sees the harsh lines of a chart, before it all fades to a blur of Russian letters.

Gabriel leans forward, smiling. “And what is it that you have to gain by helping the Bolsheviks?”

“I’m not helping anyone,” he says. “Cas pulled me out of the middle of a slaughter.”

Gabriel turns to inspect his brother. “So you renamed him and followed him through Siberia?” 

Cas is studiously ignoring them both as he continues to write in his notebook without a single pause.

Dean smiles, watching him. “Well, he looked like he knew where he was going.”

—

He wakes up to the feeling of a down-feather mattress and despite the fact that it’s nicer than anything he’s ever owned, for a moment Dean thinks he’s in Kansas. He expects to find Sam, six year’s old and wide awake, kneeling at the foot of his bed. 

He has to blink away the illusion as his eyes adjust to the light. The bedroom is stripped bare, like most of the house, with fading wallpaper and dusty floors. Someone draped a green military coat over his shoulders as he slept. Metals and pins jingle as he sits up and tosses the coat aside. 

“Cas,” he calls quietly, peaking into the hallway. 

The floorboards creek as he walks, and from a distance he hears the soft Russian lilt of conversation come to a halt. It sounds as if they’re in the kitchen, and now that he’s out of the dusty air of the bedroom he smells something cooking. 

He puts weight into his steps as he goes down the stairs, giving them plenty of warning before he appears in the doorway. 

“Good morning,” he says. “I’ll have a bowl of whatever that is.” 

Cas looks up from the rim of his chipped mug. The bags around his eyes look just a little more pronounced, his skin sallow, as if sleeping indoors doesn’t agree with him. “Good morning,” he repeats. 

“Help yourself to soup. The stock bones were dried, by the way,” Gabriel tells him, like it’s a warning.

Dean raises his eyebrows. “They could be human and I’d still come back for seconds.” 

He fills a bowl with cloudy soup, made with potatoes and blackened chicken bones. He can’t help stealing a sip from the rim of the bowl before he even reaches the table. Cas has a half-finished piece of stale bread in front of him that he pushes towards Dean, with soft-spoken Russian and a quick mime to illustrate dunking the crust into the bowl.

“Good idea,” he says. “Thanks.”

There’s a bottle of clear liquid on the table with a handwritten label, stuck with an old cork. Dean is willing to bet his serving of soup that it’s vodka. He reaches for the bottle but Cas gets there first, his fist around the neck before Dean can pull it closer. 

“Dean,” he says, in his best impression of a mother’s disapproving tone. 

“What? Let go, Cas, I just want a drink. I’ve been sober since Vladivostok and I could use the warmth.”

Cas pulls the bottle from his grasp and sets it out of reach, speaking in sentences too long for Dean to ever hope to parse. 

“He says you’ll get dehydrated.” Gabriel tilts his chair back with one foot steady on the floor, seemingly unaware of the sounds of the wood creaking and groaning beneath him. 

“I’m fine,” Dean says to Cas. 

“Dean,” he repeats sternly. 

“More for me,” Gabriel says, plucking the bottle off the table with a flourish. “Terribly sorry you have to miss out. This is the last of the good stuff.”

“Hey,” Dean says, knocking on the table with his knuckles to get Cas’ attention. 

“What is in the cup?” He pronounces slowly, trying to save himself from Gabriel’s smug translations. “If I can’t drink, you can’t drink.”

Cas glares at him. “Soup,” he says. 

“He didn’t even spike it, I’m afraid. Otherwise I would tell you. I always did adore seeing him in trouble.” Gabriel says, taking a swig directly from the bottle. 

“I can’t imagine that happened often,” Dean mumbles, grudgingly dipping bread into the broth until it’s soft enough to swallow without chewing.

“No,” Gabriel says, his head tilted up at the ceiling. “Only the once, really.”

He doesn’t elaborate and Dean finishes his breakfast in silence. When there is nothing but grease from the stock left in the bottom of his bowl, Cas whisks it away, dipping their used dishes into a pale of half melted snow. He says something in Russian, clipped and perfunctory. 

“He says,” Gabriel drawls. “Rest. You’ll only be here another night.”

—

Cas spends his time standing out on the front steps, arms crossed, facing the forest. Dean stays as far away as he can from the door to avoid the inevitable burst of cold when Cas eventually trudges back inside. He’s not sure what exactly Cas is looking for - if he’s been at war long enough to expect an army advancing from all sides or if he’s simply more comfortable in the snow.

Without waking hungry and shivering in his sleep, Dean has the luxury of homesickness. He misses the greys and greens of summer rainstorms, the kind that would paint the sky in a shade of perpetual dusk. He misses the rare Sunday mornings when his chores would keep for the Sabbath, and Sam would crawl into bed with him and wrap his little fingers around the knotted rope of leather tied around his neck. He would fall back asleep to the steady sound of rain on glass and his little brother’s breathing.

He looks into the fire, watching the flames with a knot in his throat that grows and grows until he has to clench his teeth to keep it down. What he wouldn’t give to be in Kansas, to tap his filthy boots together and be back at the ranch with a storm on the way.

“Cigarette?” Says a voice behind him. Dean is too tired to be startled.

“I’d give my right hand for one,” he says, barely looking up as Gabriel takes a seat on the floor beside him. He crosses his legs gingerly, like adjusting to the carpet is its own novelty. He passes him a cigarette, thin and distinctly European, and offers him the flame from a silver plated lighter.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Gabriel asks. “There’s not a single egg left in all of Russia, but we have cigarettes freshly rolled.”

Dean inhales tobacco and lets out an involuntary, soft sound of agreement. “Jesus,” he hisses, smoke funneling through his teeth.

“You’re welcome,” Gabriel says. “Though I’m afraid my dear brother wouldn’t approve. He never did share in our vices.”

Dean keeps the cigarette between his teeth, savoring the taste. “Our?” He asks.

“Our brothers.”

“And how many of those have you got?” 

Gabriel takes a moment to flick ash onto the floor. “Many.” 

He coughs and to Dean’s ears it sounds wet, infected. He wonders, for the first time, how exactly Gabriel came to this abandoned house. “They’re all in Petrograd, busy one-upping each other for power and influence and the royal fucking jewels.” 

“And Cas?” Gabriel never comments on his newly acquired name, but he smiles each time he hears it. 

“He always had such a troublesome sense of justice,” He spits the word, like it’s something he’s sick of hearing. “He’d tucked himself neatly into the revolution before even Kerensky knew it was there. Most of the family hasn’t heard from him in years.” 

“Except you.” Dean says, exhaling smoke. He wonders if there’s any version of himself, any make-believe life that he might have led, where he could talk about Sammy with such disinterest. 

“Well, what can I say? Our brothers are so very predictable. _Cas_ , at least, is interesting.” 

Dean’s picture of Cas is shifting like water colored paints, filling in the fibers of his childhood with shades of greed and neglect. He’s always seen the weary soldier, but now he sees a reason.

“Are you close to your family?” Gabriel asks, though he doesn’t seem particularly interested.

“Of course,” he answers automatically. “They’re all I’ve got.” 

Gabriel laughs smoke. “The words of a poor man indeed.” 

—

“Paper,” Dean mimics, writing with a pen. “Like for a letter?” 

Cas nods slowly and retreats up the stairs, remerging with his leather-bound notebook. He neatly tears a page from the binding and hands it to Dean with the heavy ink pen he always carries. 

Dean sits on the ground, hunched over as he tries to draft the letter his little brother would expect. In the end, it’s quick and apologetic. 

_Sammy,_

_You will soon hear that the AEF Siberia has no known survivors._

_I made it out. I am traveling with a friend and I am safe. I will do my best to get back to you, but if you hear nothing by February know that I will not make it home. I ask only that you honor my last wishes. Do not join this war. Do not join the AEF. Stay home and find yourself a nice girl. Your books were wrong anyway. Kansas is more beautiful than all of Europe I have seen._

He pauses at the end, unsure of what to write, and certain that Cas is watching curiously over his shoulder. He decides on a simple, ‘ _I love you_ ,’ as Sam will need to hear it from someone. He signs his name with his regiment, in case the letter makes it as far as an army base. As he folds the letter and neatly prints their hometown on the front, he wonders if he should say more. 

Should he tell him about the snow and the impending darkness, that after months of endless daylight he fears winter has finally arrived? He wants to say more about Cas, to assure Sammy that he is not alone now, and he won’t be at the end. 

“Dean,” Cas says gently, holding out his hand for the letter. 

“Thanks. It’s to my brother, to Sammy. Do you think Gabriel can get it to France?”

Cas nods. “To Sammy,” he agrees. 

—

He hears them arguing quietly from his position at the top of the stairs. Dean spent as long as possible in the bath, scrubbing at his skin and hair and hoping it would stave off the soldier’s rot for a little while longer. His hair is wet but his body is flushed from the hot water, and he doesn’t feel the cold just yet. 

He listens carefully for words he might recognize. He hears places, more than anything, _Moskva, Amerika_ , and Gabriel’s litany of no’s, repeated all in a row. He hears Cas say please, clear and desperate, in a way Dean has never heard him speak before. He doesn’t know what he’s asking for, but finally Gabriel must agree, because there’s silence after that, followed by softer murmurs of plans rather than arguments.

Dean decides against going back downstairs. Instead, he heads to his borrowed bedroom and lays down on the feather mattress, and tries to remember every detail of how it feels against his spine. He’ll hold this memory close when he’s sleeping on the frozen ground tomorrow with Cas at his side.

—

Dean sits up in bed the second the heavy wooden door creeks open. He is fumbling for his rifle when he hears Cas’ whispered, “Dean.”

“Jesus, Cas.” He groans, flopping back onto the mattress. “It’s not even dawn.”

He doesn’t say anything, but Dean can see his silhouette shift and putter at the foot of the bed, as if he’s not quite sure what to do with himself. “Well come on.”

He moves to the edge of the mattress, making room for Cas to sit beside him. 

“Dean,” he repeats, fiddling with his hands, his head hanging. His shoulders lack the usual military rigidity he carries with him everywhere, and the curve of his spine looks almost unnatural, bent at an angle as his head hangs low. 

“Cas,” he says, his voice scratchy with sleep. He has a hand pillowed behind his head as he closes his eyes to the dark expanse of the ceiling.

“Gabriel.” Cas says his name in a way that is barely recognizable. “Gabriel is - Gabriel will go.”

“Where?” Dean asks, knowing that leading questions will help them both. 

“To Moscow.” 

“How is he going to Moscow?” He asks slowly.

“Car and train.”

“And?”

“And,” Cas begins with a sigh. “And Dean will go.”

He cracks one eye open. “To Moscow?” 

“And Dean will go to Moscow,” Cas repeats. 

“No dice, comrade. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Dean,” Cas says, stressing his name. 

He sits up, reaching for Cas’ shoulder and turning him around to face him. He’s on his knees now, balanced on the mattress, looking like a child waiting for permission to speak. In the dark, his features blend together, but Dean knows him well enough to imagine the detail the shadows leave out. 

“Where will you go?” He asks.

Cas sways a little, leaning into his touch. “Bolsheviks,” he says. “And snow.” 

“No,” Dean says. “No, you moron. I’ll take the snow.” 

“Dean - ”

“Snow,” he repeats, cutting him off. “Tomorrow, it’s back to snow. But for right now, sleep.”

“Dean,” he says again. The desperate urgency that he heard earlier is back, and Cas’ speech is thick with it. “You - ” he groans, frustrated. “Dark, winter. You go to Moscow. You go to America. I can’t.” He pauses, breathing hard. “You will freeze.” 

Dean lies back down, shielding his eyes with his elbow. He thinks about freezing to death, the warmth and the solace of sleep, and suddenly winter doesn’t seem quite so bad. “I am going with you. There’s nothing for me in Moscow. I’m more likely to be killed by a firing squad than to make it home alive.”

“Dean,” he says, one last pleading attempt.

“I’m going with you, Cas. I choose snow. Now stay or go, but you can’t keep staring at me all night.”

Cas says nothing else. His hand remains fisted in Dean’s uniform until Dean murmurs ‘good night’ into his sleeve, a lazy slur of Russian. 

He loosens his grip and moves silently towards the door.

“I’m not sorry,” Dean calls after him.

Cas pauses in the doorway, watching him. “Good night,” he answers in English. 

—

Dean sleeps until the sun is centered in the sky and only wakes to the sound of footsteps across the sunken floor. “Go away, Cas.” He mumbles into the overcoat bunched into a pillow beneath his head. “I barely got any sleep after you woke me up last night.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” Gabriel stands with his arms folded, a book held to his chest. “My brother is downstairs packing.” 

Dean glares over his shoulder, blinking as his eyes adjust to the light and the last dregs of mid-morning sleep. Gabriel still has the poise of an English aristocrat, but he looks tired, with smudges beneath his eyes and frown lines at his brow. 

“He send you to wake me?” He asks, sitting up. 

“No,” he admits, picking idly at his fingernails. “I just wanted to speak with you before he swept you off into the wilderness once more.”

Dean stands, stretching for a moment, before shrugging on the coat that he left draped over the headboard. “Well make it quick. If he’s packing, I’d better help.”

“He won’t need it. And even if he did he wouldn’t let you,” he says, staring out the window at a landscape of snow and evergreens. “The family’s little rebel. He never would toe the line. A very American trait, if you will.”

Dean tugs on his boots and checks for his gloves in the pocket of his uniform. “Right,” he says. “I think I’ll go anyway.” 

“Wait,” Gabriel reaches for his elbow, but Dean pulls away the second his fingers brush his sleeve. “If you can make it within thirty miles of Vladivostok, they may find you. Your government is sparing no expense in their desperate attempt to locate survivors. Old Woody is facing political Armageddon and he needs a success story. They’ll bring you home.” Gabriel hands him the book he’d been carrying.

“It’s an atlas,” he says, as Dean opens the cover to pages folded over each other, maps and topographic legends, spanning all of Russia. 

“Thank you.” Dean says, but Gabriel grabs for him again, his hand tightening on his wrist.

“If by some miracle you make it out of Siberia alive, for God’s sake, take him with you.”

Dean knows that look now, the one he previously thought was exhaustion, but now he thinks it must be grief. “And if he won’t come?”

Gabriel glances behind him, like he expects his brother to be lurking in every darkened corner. “Trust me, he will.” 

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do,” Gabriel says, just as the front door slams shut and they hear Cas kicking snow off his boots in the foyer. “Just like I knew you wouldn’t come with me to Moscow.”

“Moscow is set to burn, why would I be caught alive anywhere near there and with a runaway aristocrat as my traveling partner? I heard that they were rounding up your kind for public executions.”

“It’s a better shot than this.” Gabriel snaps, gesturing out the second floor window, just as Cas appears at the foot of the stairs.

“Dean,” he calls.

“Yeah, I’m coming.” Dean shoves past him, murmuring that he’s going to collect his things, just as Gabriel says, “You don’t even know his name.”

He grits his teeth. “Good luck in Moscow,” he says. 

“Dean,” Gabriel snaps, causing him to pause at the top of the staircase. Cas is watching him with a curious tilt to his head, his hand balanced on the banister. “Don’t you leave him here. Please. He’ll be dead before winter is through.”

Dean knows that this is the last time Gabriel will ever see his brother alive. “He won’t be alone,” he says, because it’s all that he can promise. 

Gabriel turns away and when Cas calls his name again, Dean follows.

—

He can’t quite adjust to sleeping on the cold, hard ground after the down mattress and thick walls of Gabriel’s safe house. Siberia feels colder now, somehow, as if months have passed instead of days. Cas doesn’t stay up late anymore, tending to the fire and keeping watch. Instead he seeks refuge under their many woolen blankets, their legs tangled together and shoulders overlapping in an attempt to preserve body heat.

“This is probably why you hung around outside so much, huh.” Dean asks as he sits in front of the fire, watching Cas divide thick wedges of crumbling cheese. His teeth are beginning to chatter, just the barest shudder through his jaw. “So you wouldn’t get used to the warmth.”

Cas catches the wrong words, and murmurs, “Blanket?” Holding out his own in offering. 

Dean waves him off. “You’re not following the conversation, Cas. I’m fine.”

“You are cold,” Cas corrects him. “You are hungry.”

“Yeah, I am actually. Hand me some of that cheese.”

—

The rain starts just after he falls asleep. He hears it patter against the tent and rustle through the dry pine trees, like background noise to a dream. Cas curses beside him and throws off the blankets as he digs for something at the bottom of his pack.

“Cas,” he groans. “Really?” He diligently rewraps himself as Cas scrambles out of the tent with a vinyl tarp clutched to his chest. 

“Good idea,” he offers, and closes his eyes to the sounds of Cas securing the rainproof cover and the wet slosh of his boots.

Cas’ hair is dripping onto his shoulders when he finally crawls back inside, leaving his boots tucked into the corner, caked in mud and pine needles. He scrubs his hair dry with the tail of his overcoat and Dean wrinkles his nose at the smell of wet wool. It reminds him of springtime in Kansas, and in a way he supposes he got his wish. He hums in lazy approval as Cas shrugs off his coat and leaves it flat on the floor of the tent to dry. 

“Your hands are freezing,” he says, when Cas slides under the blankets and huddles close. 

Cas presses his palms to the back of Dean’s neck in retaliation. “No help,” he says, though he doesn’t sound particularly annoyed about it.

“I was sleeping.”

“ _I_ was sleeping.”

“Uh huh.” Dean rolls over to face him, and tugs him closer with an arm slung around the small of his back. “I was keeping the tent warm for you. That’s all.”

Cas hums, unconvinced, and Dean can feel the warmth of his breath against his cheek. “Is it going to rain all night? I can’t believe it’s not snow with how cold it is. Can’t decide which is worse.”

It bounces like percussion drums off the tarp, almost like rain against the glass of his bedroom window. “All day rain,” he says. 

Dean groans and Cas’ ice-cold fingers scrub absentmindedly at the base of his skull. “It is okay. We will sleep.”

“Until the rain stops?” He closes his eyes to the soft linen of Cas’ undershirt. 

“Yes,” he says. “All day.”

—

Dean is exhausted. He no longer falls into an easy rhythm while marching through the snow. Instead, he finds himself dragging his feet and falling behind like he had in the very beginning, when he would still lose sight of Cas amongst the trees. He’s not sure if it’s the sun that’s slower and slower to rise or the rapidly dropping temperature, but Dean hasn’t felt rested since they left Gabriel’s house. 

Most days he tries to hide it. He breathes in through his nose to mask how quickly he loses his breath when they march up hill and he does his best to remember to pick up his feet like a little wind-up toy solider. 

Like most things, he thinks he must be doing a poor job of it, because Cas doesn’t stray much farther than a few yards ahead. Even when he does scout between the trees, he’s always glancing backwards, making a show of it, as if he’s looking for hares or trail markers instead of at Dean’s flushed cheeks. 

It’s a childish performance for them both, but Dean takes comfort in their mutual refusal to acknowledge that at Dean’s pace they’re unlikely to outrun winter. 

Sometimes, the thought hits him with such perfect, stomach turning clarity that he will die in Siberia. 

“Dean,” Cas says gently, handing him a flask of water. “Rest?”

“Nah, Cas. I’m good for it.” He takes a few gulps of water and tries to ignore the pressure of the swollen glands around his throat. He remembers Ellen gently pressing at them when he was a child, right before he came down with a nasty bout of mumps. They kept him separated from Sam for two weeks, and by the time the swelling went down he was so stir crazy that he would have slept outside if they’d let him.

Cas pretends to stretch while he allows Dean to catch his breath. 

“You want to practice your English?” He asks, mostly to distract himself. He’s been using less and less Russian, like his memory has joined his body in its slow decline of pace. 

“Yes,” Cas agrees, his voice reaching a false note of optimism. “Let’s practice.”

—

Cas sits by the entrance to the tent and writes in his notebook to the light of the campfire. Dean has been in and out of sleep for the past half hour, until finally he rolls onto his side and groans Cas’ name. “Come to bed already.”

Cas hums in response, flipping through a handful of pages, as his thumb holds his place. “Soon.”

“What are you even doing?” He asks, his voice muffled by the blanket pulled up over his nose. 

Cas doesn’t answer and Dean doesn’t need him to. Cas has been staying up later and later, sitting with his open book and glancing over at Dean with every third word he writes. It’s as if he expects Dean will crumple into dust if his eyes stray for even a minute’s time. 

“I’m okay, Cas,” he reminds him, turning onto his side. The hard ground makes his ribs ache if he stays in any one position too long. 

“I know,” he says, idly turning a page.

“Then come to bed.”

Cas sighs, annoyed, and snaps his book shut. “Dean,” he begins, but he cuts him off before he can get any farther.

“I’m tired. I need to sleep and you’re keeping me up with all of your needless staring.” It’s a low blow, but it works. He may not have understood each word, but his tone was enough. Cas shrugs off his overcoat and laces the entrance closed, not even sparing Dean a glance.

“Thank you,” Dean says, as Cas slides beneath the blankets, pressing their shoulders together. “Now for God’s sake, go to sleep.” 

—

Cas frowns as he divides the last of the boiled sausage that they took from Gabriel’s house. “No meat.” 

“Well, I’ll miss real food.” Dean nibbles at the casing of the sausage, determined to make it last.

“No,” Cas says, biting at his chapped lips. “No meat anymore.”

Dean pauses. “Like at all? No meat at all? We’re out of rations?”

“No meat at all,” he confirms with a solemn nod. 

“Well, shit.” 

Cas nods again. 

Dean digs through his pack until he finds Gabriel’s atlas, slightly damp, but still neatly folded in the cover. “Where are we now?” He asks. 

Cas tilts his head when he sees the book, his lips parted in surprise. He opens it slowly, carefully, and begins to unfold thin pages of white peaked mountain ranges and delicate Russian letters. He spends a few moments running his fingers along rivers and valleys, turning pages to unfold more of the map, an endless expanse of empty space. 

“Here,” he says finally, tracing an area of land about the size of a half dollar. 

Dean looks over his shoulder and his chest tightens. They are in the middle of a page that is nearly blank, except for the vague topographic outline of the minor mountain ranges that surround greater Siberia. There are so few rivers, so little ink. Except, he notices, a few inches away from the empty space Cas had circled, there is a block of Russian text.

“Is that a town?” He asks, pointing to it. 

“No town,” he says. “No town anymore.” 

“And the Bolsheviks?” 

Cas points to a place beyond the river that divides the page. “Bolsheviks.” 

“We’ll make it,” Dean says with half-feigned confidence. “Don’t need meat for that. We have cheese and black bread left. We’ll be okay.”

Cas catches his hand as he reaches for the map. “You are cold,” he says, frowning.

“I’m always cold,” he assures him. “It’s good for me though, makes me more sturdy. I’ll be a proper Russian soon.”

Cas doesn’t answer. He keeps Dean’s hand cupped between his own, like he’s trying to convince himself of something. 

“Hey, Cas, look at me.” He waits until he glances up at him to continue. “Stop worrying so much. I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Cas says. 

“Okay.”

—

Dean watches as Cas flips through his book, checking his careful notes against a list of letters and numbers that Dean assumes must be infantry divisions. He turns back a few pages and begins scanning a grid, seven across and six down.

“Wait,” Dean says, reaching for his wrist. “What’s that?”

Cas looks up at him, eyes wide. “It is a book,” he says.

“No, you dick. That. What is it?” He reaches out to trace the edge of the page. “Is that a calendar? Time - does it show time?”

Cas nods, slowly, like he’s thinking better of admitting it. 

“What month is it?” He points at the title, written in Russian at the top of the page. 

He writes eleven in the right-hand corner and pronounces the name of the month, drawing out the ’n’ and ‘b’ sounds. 

“November,” Dean breathes. “Jesus, I thought it couldn’t even be October yet.”

Cas nods his head, and circles a box somewhere near the second week. “Day,” he says, softly.

“Oh.” It’s almost Thanksgiving. Sam will be visiting Mom’s grave alone this year. He wonders if he’ll truss the stone up with tinsel, like they used to when he was just a kid. Maybe he won’t bother to go at all. 

John’s Thanksgiving tradition was to take extra shifts shucking at the mill and then head to the pub to drink himself unconscious. Dean was always the one to load Sammy into the cart and lug bags of flour and sugar in through the kitchen door. He’d spend a week or two saving up eggs from the roost for cream pies and meringue topping and setting aside stale bread for dressing. 

Sammy doesn’t know the first thing about making Thanksgiving dinner. He hopes he’s smart enough to use Dean’s extra holiday pay for more than just roast chickens, and instead spend the night with Ellen and Bobby like they did when Dean was still too small to reach the countertops. 

“Dean,” Cas says gently. 

“This is a holiday,” Dean says, pointing at the fourth Thursday. “Like Christmas, noel.” 

Cas nods his head in understanding, and Dean continues. “We eat a lot of food. We cook and eat all afternoon. Well - ” He pauses, “I cook. I cook and my little brother eats.”

Cas murmurs something with a smile, the harsh cut of _Amerikanskiy_. 

“Don’t be envious, just ‘cause we know how to do holidays properly. Food and family. None of you European’s long suffering church sermons.” 

He smiles, shaking his head. “I like it,” he admits.

“You would,” Dean says, pillowing his hands behind his head. “I think you’d like it a lot.”

—

The wind whips through the trees with an eerie northern whistle, flecked with snow thrown like dust up into the sky. The temperature is dropping along with the sun, and Dean begins to sweat. He is usually able to ward off the bite of winter when they walk, even when his body is slower to adjust, but he knows this is different. This is fever and suddenly Dean can feel it in every joint, the cloying haze of illness. 

He breathes deep through the makeshift balaclava over his mouth, too exhausted to succumb to the slight lurch of panic in his stomach. It’ll be a few hours before it begins to show through the dampness of his uniform and the ache in his legs. 

But it feels like only half that long when his vision begins to brighten and fog. It’s a bit like floating, for just a moment, before the darkness creeps in.

“Cas,” he says, but his own voice sounds distant. He feels hands on his shoulders as he tries to force his feet to move. Things feel slow, like life underwater, until finally he opens his eyes to grey overhang.

“Oh,” he whispers, because he doesn’t remember lying down, and he’s not sure how his pack got below his feet, propping up his legs. He tries to move but Cas presses down against his shoulders.

“No,” he says gently. His cheeks are flushed and his fingers are digging painfully into Dean’s wrist as he counts out the sluggish beats of his pulse. “Stay.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean murmurs.

“We sleep here,” Cas says, ignoring him.

“I think I can walk now,” he says, trying to sit up only to be pushed back down again. “I was just dizzy for a minute, that’s all.”

“No,” Cas repeats, firmer this time. “We sleep here.”

He eventually allows Dean to push himself up into a sitting position, supported by the base of a peeling birch tree. Cas carefully tucks a square of hardtack into his palm and sets the flask of water in his lap. Dean has no appetite, and he has to swallow double to keep it down, but he eats anyway, wary of Cas’ frequent glances as he sets up the tent. 

“I’ll be fine,” he says, loud enough for Cas to hear him over the rustle of canvas and the heavy hammering of stakes. “It’s just a cold. Most of our men got them back in May, when we first arrived. I thought I’d dodged the bullet, turns out I just put it off a while.” 

In truth, it was a flu that went around, brought over on the cargo ship from France and tearing through their soldiers by the dozens. He used to stay up at night, listening to men cough into their sleeping bags and wondering if he was wrong about the trenches. 

Cas doesn’t answer him. Instead he ushers Dean into the tent and pillows his head with his pack while murmuring, “Stay.”

“I’m fine,” he repeats, though his body is succumbing to the pull of fever faster than his mind can deny it. He closes his eyes to Cas’ whisper of, “Sleep.” 

It doesn’t feel like sleeping. Dean is itchy and restless, but his body won’t move and so his mind floats from hazy thought to hazy thought, wondering when exactly the sun will set. He’s watching from the window of their bedroom in Kansas, looking out across Bobby’s field as the sun moves faster than he’s ever seen it, falling from the sky in a wave of orange light. Of course, he thinks, it’s winter now.

Dean’s mind may be steeped in fever, but his body reacts to the sound of gunshots. He opens his eyes to the dark canvas of their tent and his bedroom in Kansas is all but forgotten. “Cas,” he calls, his voice barely a whisper. “Cas!”

He forces himself up onto his elbows, breathing in deep as his head swims. “God damn it, Cas.”

In the time it takes him to fumble with the laces of his boots and find his overcoat in the pile of blankets, Dean begins to wonder if he really had heard anything or if it was just a dream. Maybe Cas is out collecting firewood and there weren’t any gunshots at all, only the return of Dean’s nightmare on the Cossack battlefield. 

But the sun really is setting now, Dean can tell by the shadows cast and the dimness of the light, and he feels the familiar lurch of nausea deep in his stomach.

He fumbles with the ties at the entrance, struggling to undo Cas’ careful lacing. He feels a gust of cold air and quickly pulls an extra blanket around his shoulders before braving Siberian dusk. 

Dean sits at the entrance of the tent, shivering through his uniform, and eyes the gap in the trees where Cas’ footprints fade into the horizon. He twists and turns at every crunch of leaves or snow or ice, every broken twig and bird’s song. Finally, when Dean can hardly see anything beyond the barest outlines of trees, he catches sight of a figure trudging through the snow.

“Cas?” He calls, wondering vaguely why he didn’t grab his gun. 

“Dean?” He slings something from his back and jogs over to the tent, falling to his knees to inspect Dean’s face with his gloved hands. “You are cold.” He sounds accusatory. 

“I heard a gunshot.” His clenches his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering, but he’s sure Cas can feel him shiver anyway.

Cas huffs an exasperated Russian phrase before explaining, “No meat.” 

Dean looks back to whatever it was Cas dropped onto the ground. “You went hunting?”

Cas nods. “Go,” he says, not allowing Dean another word in edgewise. “To tent.” 

“The tent,” Dean corrects him, but he listens, his body drained from the effort of keeping himself upright. 

“To the tent,” Cas repeats as he tucks blankets carefully around Dean’s body.

“I used to do this for Sammy, you know,” he says, his eyes closed. “He hated it, ‘cause he ran hot, always wanted to fling his sheets off in the night. Couldn’t even stand quilts.” Cas’ cool hands settle over his cheeks and the rise of his forehead, checking for his temperature. “But I never had no Momma to do it for me.” His voice is slurred, and Cas murmurs for him to sleep, but instead he whispers, “So I tucked Sammy in every night anyway.”

“Dean,” Cas says, his voice pained, but he doesn’t catch another word. He feels the ghost of Sammy’s little boy kisses against his cheeks and the flutter of his lashes against his temple. He thinks he must be dreaming again and miles away someone sighs his name.

—

Cas feeds him a steady diet of musk deer marrow spread onto hardtack and strips of meat cooked over the fire. Once, he mashes up the remainder of their dried prunes with a bitter red berry and herbs Dean doesn’t recognize, and forces him to eat spoonful after spoonful until Dean can no longer keep it down. 

“What exactly was all the fuss about,” he asks, his eyes still closed to the darkness of the tent. “If you could just go find a deer?”

Cas hums like he always does when he doesn’t understand a word he’s saying so Dean sighs and starts again. “Meat,” he says. “You went hunting. We can always have meat.”

Cas murmurs one of their earliest vocabulary words. “Bullets.” 

Dean doesn’t need any more explanation than that. There are few things more valuable than rations in wartime, and ammunition is one of them. 

“Right,” Dean mumbles into the scratchy wool blanket. “Bullets.” 

He knows Cas is watching him, but it doesn’t bother him for much longer because sleep begins to pull at the edges of his consciousness and Dean lets himself go. 

— 

He wakes to Cas’ hand pressed against his chest. His hair is sticking up, a mess of errant curls matted from sweat and sleep. The whites of his eyes are visible through the faint, lasting light. He gasps something in Russian, his posture crumbling as he rubs at his eyes with one hand.

“Hey,” Dean says, sitting up slowly and feeling the world pitch and spin around him. He voice is ragged and stretched thin, sounds worse than it feels by half. “Is everything okay?”

Cas gestures at Dean’s chest, silent but for his ragged breathing.

“Pretty sure I’m fine.” He says, patting himself down as if checking for injuries. He’s sore nearly all the time, a pain that sits just under his skin, like bruises swelling over his entire body. But he likes to imagine it’s just one of the many aches of Siberia, and that Cas might feel the same. 

“You - “ he tries, his voice unsteady. “Not breathe.”

“I’m breathing just fine.” He exhales loudly in demonstration, though it hurts to hold in the cough that threatens at the back of his throat. “I think you were sleeping. Nightmare.”

Cas shakes his head, wide eyes skittering over the edges of the tent. He has a wild look to him, like he hasn’t slept in days. “No,” he insists. “No nightmare. Dean.” 

He reaches blindly for Cas’ hand and catches his wrist instead. “Hey, I’m fine. C’mere.” 

He folds into Dean’s body, his chin hooked over his shoulder. “I am sorry,” he whispers.

“No, it’s okay. Look, I was probably just breathing shallow, you know? It comes with a cold, the flu. Whatever this is.”

“I woke,” Cas says, his voice vibrating through Dean’s collarbones. “You not breathe.” 

“Were not breathing,” Dean corrects him, earning a soft slap to his thigh in retaliation. 

He’s been sleeping deeper and deeper each night, beyond even the fever dreams that plagued him. Even with Cas’ fingers digging into his shoulder blade, Dean feels like he’s hours away from simply sinking into the snow and staying there until spring comes like the Grizzly’s up north. Maybe, some nights, his body settles as deep as his mind, until it’s difficult to tell if he’s really sleeping at all.

“I’m fine,” he promises.

Cas reaches up to run the tips of his fingers through Dean’s beard. 

“Come on,” he says. “I’m tired. Lay down.” 

Cas doesn’t answer, so Dean takes it as permission to pull him back onto the ground. Cas rearranges their small nest of blankets, separating out the ones already damp from sweat and condensation. Dean doesn’t have the energy to do much other than wrap his arms around Cas’ shoulders, pulling gently until he gets the hint and rests his ear against Dean’s chest. 

He thinks that his heart must be more reliable than his lungs these days and Cas seems to agree. His eyes flutter shut at the sound of Dean’s heartbeat, and neither of them says another word.

—

He begins to lose track of time. He wakes less and less frequently, and his memory is fragmented as if he’s been in whisky for days. He knows Cas has been talking to him, a steady stream of Russian he can’t understand, and that he punctuates his monologues by tipping water down Dean’s throat. He tries to open his eyes whenever Cas does that, though he only sometimes manages it.

When he shutters awake to filtered sunlight, Dean thinks for sure it’s only been a few hours since his fever hit, that he just laid down and Cas hasn’t yet returned from hunting. The tent is empty, though he can hear the distant crackle of a fire. 

Dean dreams that he floats up through the tent, above the trees, leaving all of Siberia behind. He hears Cas’ voice from a distance, calling for him to come back and he opens his mouth to explain but no sound comes out. 

“Dean,” Cas says. “Stop, you are safe.”

Dean isn’t floating anymore, he’s struggling against whatever it is that has a hold of his chest. He feels his body pitch and move and he doesn’t quite believe him. 

Sammy walks beside him as they wade through the snow, humming an old Christmas song, seven years old and priestly calm. “You should listen, Dean. You wouldn’t act this way with Dad, would you?”

Dean wants to answer that he isn’t acting any way at all. He’s pulled tight on puppet strings and besides, Sam’s one to talk. But he does his best to listen anyway and to follow the low sound track of Cas’ voice, threaded through with Sam’s singing. It’s like a lullaby, in its own way, and he breathes out a sigh of relief. 

—

Dean opens his eyes to the high, concave ceiling of a snow-white canvas tent. “What the fuck,” he whispers.

He tries to sit up, ignoring the heavy throb of pressure at his temples, but he doesn’t get father than his elbows before his vision starts to bleed out to the steady beat of his pulse. He lets himself fall back against the firm base of the cot he’d woken up on, though his ribs ache in protest. Maybe his body isn’t used to the tight hold of military-issued bedding anymore, after months spent sleeping on the ground.

He busies himself by looking around, the echo of his old commander’s voice ringing in his ears, ‘Always gauge your surroundings.’ 

The tent could fit eight men comfortably. There are lanterns lit on a low wooden table, flooding the room with golden light. Beside the bed is a small washstand, with a pitcher of water balanced on the edge. Dean can barely swallow, but with a single groan of effort he reaches for the pitcher and drinks directly from the edge. He swallows too quickly, forgets to breathe between gulps, and soon he’s coughing into his hand, loud and hacking. 

Between the clatter of the pitcher falling onto the hard ground and his attempts to regain his breathing, Dean hardly notices the solider that steps inside. His head snaps up at the rustle of canvas and twine and he wracks his fuzzy, fevered brain for a Russian word that could explain any of this. 

The solider is wearing dark olive green, his hands clasped behind his back and a fur cap pulled down over his ears. He’s as silent as Cas when he pulls out a chair are takes a seat at the makeshift desk in the corner, littered with maps and open books. He crosses his legs and removes his cap, setting it aside. It isn’t until the solider begins absentmindedly combing through short-cropped red hair that Dean realizes with an unpleasant jolt that she is in fact a woman. 

“I am glad you woke,” she says. Her voice is high and sweet but her accent is all wrong, rigid and unyielding. Cas took to English with soft vowels and careful enunciation. It’s odd to think that they must share the same mother tongue. 

“Where am I?” He rasps. His throat feels dry and his voice crackles like old parchment paper. 

“You are American,” she says, ignoring him. 

“Yeah.” He eyes her wearily as she stands and moves closer to his cot with silent footsteps. 

“And he carried you all this way?” She smiles as she crouches down in front of him, laying her cold hand on his cheek. “It’s no wonder.” 

Dean jerks away from her touch, ignoring how comforting her fingers feel against his fevered skin. “Where is he?”

“Preparing. I am Anna, if you would like to know. He sent me to keep an eye on you, if you should wake. Not many of us speak English. We were bakers and iron workers before the revolution.” She pulls back, standing with the same graceful poise that Gabriel clutched onto, even in the depths of Siberia. 

“And you weren’t?” He guesses.

“No,” Anna says. 

Dean doesn’t have the energy to dig any deeper into her leading smiles, so he just nods his head. He can see his pulse behind his closed eyelids, a steady black halo that spreads with each heartbeat. 

She looks down at him, as if reading his every weakness in the shudder of his chest. “You need to eat.”

“I’m fine.”

She hums disbelievingly and sounds so much like Cas that Dean nearly smiles. “You are sick,” she says, leaning in close, inspecting the delicate bruises dotting his skin. 

“I’m fine. I just need to sleep.”

“You have been sleeping a very long time,” she says softly.

Dean closes his eyes and does his best not to think about how many days may have passed without him. “Will Cas know to find me here?”

“I imagine so,” she says, smiling. “This is his tent.”

—

He wakes to Cas murmuring his name and to the shock of a cool cloth pressed to his forehead. It’s a struggle to open his eyes. He can feel his lashes fluttering as Cas wipes away the traces of cold water at his temple.

“Dean,” he says again, gently pulling him up enough to tip warm water into his mouth. 

He groans but swallows on instinct. His whole body aches with some unknown pain, dozens of times worse than the bruising he’d felt in the forest. Cas’ fingertips feel like pinpricks against his shoulder. 

When he finally manages to open his eyes, it takes more than a few minutes to adjust to the lantern light. Cas keeps his cheek cradled in his palm as he offers him another drink. He smiles a little, though Dean can tell that he’s worried.

“I’m okay,” he says, but it comes out choked and Dean coughs before he can say anything else. His chest caves as he tries to inhale, but Cas’ arms around his shoulders keep him steady. 

“You are sick.” Cas says gently. “You need food.”

“Got any?” 

Cas pulls away to reach for a tin bowl of cloudy soup that he had set on the floor beside them. He holds the rim to Dean’s lips, leaving the spoon in his lap. It’s a fine thing anyway, as Dean’s hands are trembling like a burn victim, unable to even make a fist. 

He can’t taste anything but salt and warmth. He can’t smell it either. But he manages to finish a quarter of the bowl before his stomach starts rolling in protest.

“Sorry,” he says, but Cas shakes his head and holds the bowl in his lap. 

“Water and sleep.” 

Dean takes one last sip from the mug before Cas helps him lay back down. 

“She said this was your tent,” he whispers, closing his eyes. “Didn’t know you were the boss around here.” 

Cas runs his thumb along Dean’s hairline, tucking the cool cloth back in place. 

“You are safe here,” he says slowly, and Dean knows he didn’t quite understand. He has so many questions to ask him, so much he wants to know, but he can barely think to form the words. 

“I know,” Dean tells him and at some point between Cas tracing his cheekbone and murmuring softly in his ear, he falls back asleep.

—

Most of the time, when he wakes, Anna’s red hair is the first thing he sees. She’s seated in the same chair, a book spread out on her lap and a heavy looking sniper rifle propped against her inner thigh. She looks up and catches him staring.

“Did you know, I’m the best shot in camp.” It’s not a question. “And now I am here, watching you sleep.” 

“You don’t need to.” He says, his voice thick. 

“I don’t take orders from you.” He wants to say something else, to apologize for whatever inconvenience he has caused her or insist that he can’t be to blame, but she continues before he can gather the energy. “And the man I do take orders from is risking our lives to parley with the White Army.”

“He what?” Dean asks, feeling the familiar chill of dread drip down his spine. 

“They are looking for Americans,” she snaps. “He thinks they will save your life and take you home.”

“No,” he whispers.

“And when the men find out what he has been doing, they will shoot him as a traitor anyway.” 

“Then I’ll bring him with me,” he says. “If they’re looking for Americans, I’ll just - “

She tilts her head, and more to herself than to him, she says, “I should have killed you when he first brought you here. I should have suffocated you in your sleep, before this could happen.”

“And why haven’t you?” He asks. “I still might, anyway. Die in my sleep.” He knows his lungs are failing; he can feel it with every breath.

“Because I don’t trust him anymore.”

“He’s a good man,” he assures her, though he’s not sure why he even says it. Anna surely knows Cas better than Dean ever will.

“He is like all men,” she says, standing, gathering her rifle into her arms. “He is selfish.”

—

“No,” Cas whispers, as Dean begins to fidget and shift beside him. “Back to sleep.”

“Cas?” He asks, blearily, though he knows already that it’s him. His body is pressed firmly to Dean’s back, folded over him in the limited space that the cot allows. He pauses to cough, thick and wet. Cas winces into the back of his neck. 

“I am sorry,” he whispers. “Please, sleep.”

“Anna told me where you went.” He can hear his lungs crackle and pop as he breathes. 

Cas stiffens behind him at the mention of Anna’s name. “Yes,” he says, softly. 

“You went to the White Army.”

Cas doesn’t answer this time. Instead he splays his hand against Dean’s chest. “You are sick,” he tells him. “Americans have medicines, have food.” 

“So come with me,” Dean says. “Come with me to America. I’ll pretend you don’t speak at all, that you don’t talk, and no one would think any different. Men come back from France who don’t say a word. And I’ll take you home with me, back to the ranch, you can meet Sammy. He’ll teach you to speak English a far sight better than I ever could.” 

Cas inhales like he’s breathing in every word and committing them to memory. “Okay,” he whispers and Dean can feel each vowel against his skin.

“Okay?” He turns to face him, jostling them both on the flimsy cot and causing his ribs to ache. “You’ll come?”

Cas traces his cheekbones with the tips of his fingers and Dean can barely see his face by the light of the single lantern left burning on the desk. 

“Tomorrow,” he says, softly, trailing his fingers along the bridge of his nose.

“We’re going tomorrow?”

“They come,” he says. “With medicines, with cars.”

“You’re bringing them into camp? You’re bringing them here? Jesus, Cas, that’s dangerous, what if - ” 

Cas doesn’t seem to be listening. Instead he pulls Dean into his arms and hooks his chin over his shoulder, breathing into Dean’s hair like his own lungs are fit to burst. “Tomorrow,” he says, his voice muffled. 

It’s too hot beneath the blankets with Cas’ body pressed to his and Dean can already feel the sweat sticking his undershirt to his skin. But he only tries to bring him closer, content with the knowledge that for now, at least, neither of them are going anywhere. 

He feels like he only just nodded off by the time his body jolts him awake with another coughing fit. Dean pulls away from Cas’ sleep-slack hands and turns onto his back as he attempts to settle his breathing. 

Cas is awake and out of bed in the span between Dean’s unsteady breaths, scooping up old uniforms in an assortment of colors and rank. He bunches them together and uses them to prop Dean up enough to take the pressure off his rib cage. Then he busies himself with the water pitcher, pulling a flask from his bag and coaxing Dean into small sips. 

It tastes sweet and strange, like the remnants of wine or maybe milk. He is grateful for the cooling affect of the metal, though the cold water makes his teeth ache. 

“Thank you,” he says. 

Cas nods his head and readjusts them so that Dean’s ear is to his chest. He breathes shallow though his mouth, three quarters time to the thrum of Cas’ heartbeat. 

“It’s still dark,” he murmurs, though he can hear the movement of soldiers outside the thin barrier of their tent. The sound is comforting, every click of a tin mug and each muffled laugh is a solemn proof of life. 

“Morning,” he says into Dean’s hair.

“Are the soldiers coming? The White Army?” 

“Not now,” Cas whispers. “Sleep.”

“Wake me before they get here,” he says, speaking into Cas’ collarbone, but unwilling to adjust himself. Cas doesn’t answer, or if he does, Dean is not awake to hear it. 

—

Dean can feel the rumble of a car engine at the edge of his subconscious, comforting and constant. It lulls him in and out of sleep with memories of riding on the back of their old stallion when Daddy used to bring him down to the creek, back when Sammy was nothing but angel dust and their Momma was still alive. He feels every bump and sway of the horse’s hooves.

He jolts at a stabbing pain in his arm, pulling Dean back to himself, forcing his eyes open. 

“Winchester, sir, stay still please. You will break the needle.” His accent is thick and almost impossible to recognize as English.

“Where’s Cas,” he groans, opening his eyes and not seeing anything at all.

“Who?” The stabbing pain in his arm subsides and a hand is pressed gingerly to his skin.

“Cassidy, Cas. The man I was with. Where is he?” He gasps.

“No,” someone answers from miles and miles away. “We were told there was just one.”

Dean shakes his head and feels linen against his cheek. “We need to go back,” he says. 

He repeats it over and over again, until he’s mouthing words he cannot hear. The heavy sway of the suspension turns to waves of golden wheat and for a moment he’s back on the stallion, his legs dangling against his flank, and then he dreams of nothing at all.


	3. Chapter 3

Sometimes Dean wakes, but it feels more like dreaming. He hears voices, fading in and out like the static on a radio, punctuated by bouts of screaming. Whenever he tries to move he feels paralyzed, like an insect pinned behind glass. Sometimes there are hands on his face or his shoulders, cool and reassuring, but usually he’s alone. 

Time is sticky and taffy pulled and soon enough Dean forgets all about the war. He forgets about his little brother waiting at home and he forgets every Russian word he’s ever known and he sleeps.

When Dean finally opens his eyes, it’s to the scrap metal ceiling of an American war ship. It’s an odd if common feeling these days, waking up with no idea where he is and no memory of how he got there. But this, at least, is familiar in the way that every ship is. The barracks have been converted into a medical ward, with anchored cots set low to the ground, housing soldiers who are either asleep or staring silently up at their own little patch of ceiling. 

The man just beside him has a bandaged stump where his right arm should be, sticking out from under a thin grey blanket. Dean rushes to pat down his own body, checking for every finger and toe to the sound of his racing heartbeat. 

He pauses for a moment at the neckline of his white linen shirt as his fingers graze the familiar cracked leather strap to his dog tags and finds another set tangled at his collarbones. He pulls at both cords with shaking hands and rolls onto his side to read the engraving by the lantern light. _Cassidy, U.S.A., 75th PI. Penn._

He curls into himself as grief clashes with the gentle sway of the ship. Dean thinks he may be sick as he presses his hands into his eyes and gasps for breath. His lips tremble and his chest heaves and Dean allows himself to cry without a single thought to the men laid out beside him. He can’t hear anything beyond his own rattling breath and the rush of blood in his ears, and he certainly doesn’t hear it when the door behind him creaks open. 

“Would you like something for the pain?” There is a man bent over his cot, dressed in a doctor’s uniform with a syringe in his hand. 

Dean wipes at his eyes with the backs of his hands and when he fails to answer, the doctor says, “It will help you sleep.”

He swallows down a sob and nods his head. 

—

Dean remembers bits and pieces of his earliest days in Aberdeen, but mostly it floats by in a morphine haze. Even with the chemical aid of opioids, it’s impossible to ignore the cold damp of Scotland. No matter how many kerosene heaters they set up between the beds, Dean still shivers and shakes. 

Within a week of settling into the auxiliary hospital, a young volunteer nurse kindly informs him that morphine is carefully rationed these days, and it’s not much of a cure for pneumonia besides. 

“If you can’t sleep, I’ll make you a cup of tea. I promise, it’ll be just the thing you need.”

She brings him sweet papery teas at night and Dean sips at them obediently while clutching Cas’ dog tags tight enough to leave partial imprints in his skin. He knows they never really belonged to Cas, that they were stolen off a body somewhere in a hasty exchange of uniforms. But still he traces every dent and scratch like he’s worrying prayer beads.

Dean is breathing better each day, but most of the time he finds himself wishing for the fever. 

—

They hand out mail on Sundays. Nurses file between the beds and give each solder an envelope or a little package from home. Some of these men have families an afternoon’s ride from here and still they sob into their hands, letters left crumbled on their laps.

When a portly nurse stops just beside his bed, Dean looks up with red-rimmed eyes and says, “I don’t want it.”

“Oh,” she hesitates, half ready to hand him a letter stamped near a dozen times with little blue stars. “But - ” She pauses, as if she hadn’t really thought of anything to say.

“Really, I don’t want it. Couldn’t you just keep it for me? Just for now?”

“Well,” she shuffles his letter to the end of the stack. “If you insist. I’ll check with you next Sunday then, shall I?”

Weeks pass and Dean’s small stack of letters nearly doubles in size. The nurses always look at him with a wary smile, like they’ve been told by the other volunteers what to expect, but they don’t try to give him any more letters. 

—

For a few weeks in which Scotland hesitantly considerers spring weather, complete with rain and thunderstorms rolling over the distant hills, Dean gets worse. He can barely sleep and his chest heaves with the invisible weight left balanced on his ribcage. 

He lies wheezing up at the ceiling and thinks that dying of exposure would have been better than drowning, night to night, alone in this fucking hospital.

“You won’t get better like this,” an elderly nurse whispers sympathetically, sometime between dawn and dusk as she pats his forehead with a damp washcloth. “I’ll get something to help you sleep.”

She returns with a glass, no larger than an eggcup, and helps him sip tepid, sweet liquid. 

“What is it?” He asks, punctuated by a coughing fit.

“Water and morphine,” she says. “It’s diluted, but it’ll do the job.”

He breathes shallow and sits back against the makeshift wall of pillows and blankets that keeps him propped up. As he rolls the last of the water around in his mouth, Dean remembers the taste from the flask Cas had given him before he woke in the back of a White Army medical truck. 

“You fucking bastard,” he whispers to himself, his eyes closed against the glassy haze of tears.

He’s not surprised this time when he sleeps through sunrise and the breakfast bell. He sleeps until the sun is centered in the sky, or would be if he could see anything but overhang out the mold-speckled windows. 

“There you go,” a young nurse tells him as she sets a blanket over his lap and gives him a plate of eggs and cabbage. “Worse before you’re better, that’s all it is, love.”

He wonders if everything works like that, or if it’s only infection.

—

Every day Dean is forced out of bed to take tea and toast in a cafeteria that used to house school children. His legs shake at first when he stands, but soon the slow walk to breakfast is the easiest part of his day. Nurses hand him candlestick holders to grip and raise above his head and they wrap him in blankets before leading little groups of soldiers in circles around the building. It’s always wet, even when it isn’t raining, and it’s still cold despite the spring flowers blooming in the nurses’ window boxes.

At night he listens to the voices around him; men that are all sons of coal miners and who miss their mothers’ scones and jam. They sigh over childhood games of cricket and roast pheasant on Sundays. Dean never has anything to add. 

A retired doctor with thick lenses listens to his chest through a stethoscope. “You sound excellent,” he says. “A little inflammation perhaps, but it may be like that for some time still. No smoking, I’m afraid, not for a good long while, though chew should be just fine. Now, I expect you will be fit for the next transport ship back to America.”

“When?” Dean rasps, his throat dry.

The doctor pauses, making a note on the card clipped to the front of Dean’s bed. “The ship? Well I haven’t the faintest. I’ll be sure to inform the commandant so that he can arrange it. Now make sure you’re keeping up with your exercises, practicing on the stairs like the nurses told you.”

“Sure,” Dean says. “I’ll do that.”

—

The next time the nurses pass by with their letters, Dean asks for his mail with a small, guilty smile. 

“Well it’s about time,” she says. “I’ve kept them in order for you.”

The first letter is thin, more like a telegram than anything else, and it’s written in smudged ink on dust-yellowed card stock like the kind they have in the windows of the post office back home. 

_My dear brother,_

_I received your letter only after I received word of your death. Our father is still with the ROTC and he sent word in the fall that AEF Siberia was PKIA. I mourned for weeks until your letter came from Paris and I had reason to hope. The telegram from Aberdeen came soon after. I know you are ill and recovering, but I do not know the extent of it. Please, when you are able, write back to me._

_With my love,  
Samuel_

The next envelope is thicker and Dean tears it open with shaking fingers. Sam’s handwriting is neat and careful and the pages are free from smudged ink. Sam writes about Kansas, how the harvests have been good to them, and the fertile ground grows more than they can eat. Suitcase farmers are buying up land in the panhandle and setting up picket fences where there used to be wide-open prairie. 

_They haven’t the first idea how to farm the land, but that doesn’t stop them from buying it. Uncle Bobby spends most nights grumbling over all the Yankees settling out west and how they are going to pollute our towns and our fields. I don’t mind it though, not really. Folks here are doing well for it, and it’s worth a few men in bowler hats moving in next door._

He hardly mentions John, barely a passing sentence about his station out in Kentucky, before he moves on to Jo and Ellen and how they both cried with the news. Dean’s heart aches for home as he opens Sam’s next letter.

_Your damn horse ate the rope off the tack box again. He acts like a child without you around. He doesn’t mind me at all._

Dean laughs, tracing the soft peaks of his little brother’s handwriting. He reaches for the bell and rings it twice until a nurse hurries down the makeshift corridor between beds. Her eyes widen when she sees the letters spread out across his lap.

“I’m sorry to impose,” he says, putting on a bit of his mid-west drawl. “But do you think you could find me some stationary? My little brother doesn’t seem likely to stop writing until I answer him.”

She smiles sweet with a ruddy blush to her cheeks. “Of course,” she says. “I’ll be just a moment.”

The nurse brings him a stack of paper and a ballpoint ink pen, along with a milky cup of English tea. Dean almost feels bad about the smile he gives her from behind lowered lashes, but the thought is gone the second he touches pen to paper. He writes Sam’s name and pauses at the comma.

_Leave my damn horse alone._

—

Dean left for war in the company of bright-eyed boys with sandy hair that laughed and drank and played cards all night. In comparison, the ship back to New York feels like a funeral procession. 

There are always lanterns glowing in the bunks, day and night, to ward off the dark. The boy who sleeps above him trembles and shakes and his cot groans under the strain of his constant movement. Some of the men sleep pressed into one bed, huddled under threadbare sheets, taking comfort in their mutual tragedies. 

Dean spends most of his time on deck, when weather permits, staring out at the endless expanse of water and thinking that it’s not all that different than Siberia. It’s isolated and desolate and fuck if Dean doesn’t hate Cas for what he did. He gets so angry sometimes that his fingers cramp on the steel railing and tears gather below his eyelids. 

He wants to scream until his voice gives out. Instead he watches the water and wishes it were snow.

—

Sam has grown. He has an inch on him now and he looks ready to shoot up another two before summer is out. His hair is longer, combed to the side with pomade, and Dean itches to run his fingers through it and mess it all up. He wants him to look young and windswept again, but instead he just looks scared.

“Dean,” he says, his voice cracking.

“Yeah, kiddo. You gonna come say hello?” 

Sam stumbles forward and clutches Dean to his chest. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and Dean can’t imagine what it is he’s apologizing for. Maybe for the war or the fact that his train was a half hour late or maybe it’s for growing while Dean wasn’t there to watch every inch.

“It’s not your fault that you got so tall,” he assures him, wanting to feel his brother smile against the curve of his neck. 

Sam doesn’t respond and Dean rubs a comforting hand up and down the gap between his shoulder blades. 

He never would have allowed this two years ago, never would have let Sam hug him for all of Kansas City to see. But something about the way that people politely avert their gazes as they pass makes him think that maybe they’re used to soldiers coming home these days and the little brothers who cling to their chests.

Dean inhales against Sam’s temple. He smells like spring. “Come on,” he says gently. “Let’s go home.”

—

Their house smells of Ellen’s potato and leak soup and Dean pauses in the doorway. “Sammy?”

“It’s just Bobby,” he promises, as they pull off their boots. “I thought you’d be tired.”

“Thanks,” he says, squeezing Sam’s shoulder. His voice is still a little deeper, a little rougher, for the years Siberia took from his lungs.

Bobby materializes in the doorway, his knuckles white against the wooden spoon in his hand. Dean laughs, dropping his bag to the ground. “I’m too old for you to come after me with a spoon, Bobby.”

“Luck of the devil,” he says, pulling Dean into a hug so tight that it makes his ribs ache. “I always told your Daddy it was a family trait. You dumb son of a bitch.”

“Skipped me,” Sam says, patting Bobby on the back as he edges around them and heads for the kitchen. 

“Oh don’t you start,” Dean calls after him, as Bobby lets him go only to hold him at arm’s length. 

“You’ve been lean boy, but I ain’t never seen you thin,” he says quietly. 

“Yeah, yeah I know. Hard to eat a proper meal when you’re getting morphine through a needle. I’ll be plenty fat by the time Sam’s done with me, I’m sure of it.” 

“Not just Sam,” Bobby says, his fingers lingering against the nape of Dean’s neck. “You have a long list of people who want to see that you’ve made it back with their own two eyes. Ellen and Jo are at the top.” 

“I just - ” he begins, licking at his chapped lips. “I need a few days, alright?”

“I’ll buy you that much,” he says, pulling away. “But that’s all.”

“Thanks, Bobby.”

—

Dean wakes before dawn, before even Sam is up for morning chores. His body doesn’t mind time anymore, after all the changes to the sunrise and too many doses of morphine taken straight into his bloodstream. 

Waking in their old room, in the old house, is not the comfort he imagined it would be. Sam sleeps in their parents’ room now, something he admitted once dinner was finished and they were dressing for bed. 

He couldn’t stand the thought of sleeping with Dean’s empty bed beside him any longer. Dean had laughed it off, told him he was thankful not to have to put up with his snoring any longer, but truthfully he feels that emptiness too, though he’d never say it.

There’s still a chill to Kansas and he feels it deep in his chest, despite his memory of Siberian snow. He dresses in heavy woolen layers, clothes he wore before he ever became a solider, that used to smell of soap and lye and hay. Now everything smells of dust, damp from the wardrobe Sam had locked shut like a coffin. 

He pulls on his boots and allows his eyes to adjust to the faint blue light of the horizon before he steps outside. The path to the stables is muscle memory. He knows every dip in the ground and each dusty patch of earth. 

He can hear the distant rustle of chickens, sifting through the hay for feed that might’ve fallen the night before. They always did prefer roosting with the horses. Dean suspects it’s for warmth, but Sammy used to take his hand and say that they feel safer settled alongside creatures so much bigger than they are.

He hears his baby moving before he even makes it to her stable door. She’s standing, beautiful and sleek, with a shine to her coat that he can see even in the dark.

“Hey there,” he whispers, as she leans into his touch. “Remember me?”

She nickers into the palm of his hand, before shoving insistently until he pets at the groove between her eyes that always makes her relax into his touch. 

She makes restless, excited noises until Dean steps back to open the gate, allowing her to take a few steps closer to him, nuzzling at his shoulder. “Yeah, you do, don’t you?” 

He brushes a single hand down her flank, feeling every familiar shift in muscle, and turns his face into her mane. “God, how I’ve missed you.” 

He wants to talk to her more, to let her remember the cadence of his voice, but Dean can’t speak over the knot in his throat. He hasn’t cried much at all since waking on that ship, but now, with his baby leaning close like not a day has passed, he can’t seem to stop.

—

Dean likes getting back into the field, keeping his hands busy. It hurts at first, like labor never has before, starting as an ache in his shoulders and his back and radiating out until even his joints are singing. 

He takes breaks more often than he used to, and pretends it’s just an excuse to saddle up his baby and ride down towards the creek. But really he’s just tired. His lungs are heavy with the effort it takes to get the hay in place for the summer and his breathing is rough from the dust. 

So most days, he packs himself pockets of cured meat and spends his afternoons with his baby and the open prairie, watching from the grass as she splashes through spring mud and wild flowers.

“You don’t have to, you know,” Sam says over a cup of dark coffee boiled on the stove. “Cattle season is over until August, and we should be done rolling the hay by the end of the month.”

“Shut up,” Dean says, and Sam doesn’t bring it up again. 

—

Dean knows some soldiers dream of blood and gunpowder and wake up screaming. He heard enough of it in the hospital and in their cramped little navy barracks to know the exact pitch of a man’s worst nightmares. 

Sam watches him warily for the first few weeks, like he’s already read up all he could on combat fatigue, hoarding every one of the little fliers that the Interior Department sends out to veterans’ families. They both expect it, eventually, for the nightmares to start. But mostly, Dean just dreams about Cas. 

Sometimes, Dean wakes to the echo of his voice in his ear or to the phantom warmth of Cas’ fingertips, and he has to press the heels of his palms into his eyes and hold his breath until the tears stop. 

Those days, he usually fails to get out of bed. Instead, he allows himself to cycle in and out of sleep, his mind firmly frozen in Siberia, until Sammy knocks at the door.

“Dean,” he says, slipping inside with a tray of porridge and sugar. “I brought something for you to eat.”

Part of him wishes his brother were still the fourteen-year-old that he left behind. His little coltish body used to fit perfectly in Dean’s arms, but now he’s grown into a man he doesn’t recognize. 

“I’m not real hungry, kiddo.” Dean’s hand is clasped around Cas’ dog tags, his knuckles white. If Sam notices it, he doesn’t say anything.

Instead, he sits on the edge of his bed and sets the tray down on the bare nightstand. “I’m not exactly a kid anymore,” he says, gently. “You know I’m here for you, right?”

“Thanks, Sammy,” Dean pats his leg with his free hand and rolls over onto his side. “I’m just tired, you know?”

“Right,” Sam says softly. “Right, of course. I’ll just leave this here, in case,” his voice trails off. “Sleep well.”

Dean doesn’t answer and he keeps his eyes closed until he hears the bedroom door click shut. 

—

They get short letters from their father, sent through military post out in the mountains of Kentucky. Sam scoffs when he opens the first envelope. 

“You look ready to throw that right into the stove fire,” Dean says, as he shucks three heads of corn and picks out all the silk.

“It’s the same damn letter he sends every month, but now your name’s on it too,” he says. Sam throws it down onto the kitchen table, and starts towards the doorway, mumbling about a change of clothes and washing off the smell of horses. 

Dean skims the letter, careful not to touch the page with his damp hands. It’s short, a generic update on the ROTC that ends with a simple, _I’m glad you returned home safely, Dean._

“Yeah,” Dean says aloud to the empty room. “Me too, Dad.”

—

Women call out to him on the street, hollering for Mr. Winchester with a hand over their mouths. Sam sat him down in a kitchen chair days after he arrived and took a straight edge to his beard. 

Dean didn’t recognize himself in the mirror of their mother’s old vanity when Sam steered him into their parents’ bedroom to check his work. Based on the smiles of the storefront girls who never did want to give him the time of day, they don’t recognize him either.

Only Ellen and Jo seem to see him for the rancher’s son he was before he left. His father always reckoned that he’d end up marrying Jo, and Dean thinks maybe he did as well. He knows better now though. It wasn’t Jo’s sly smile or the low hum of her singing voice that he thought of in Siberia. 

When Jo first saw him and pulled him in close only to throw him back at an arm’s length to inspect every altered inch of his body, he thinks she knew it too. 

“You’re popular, boy,” Bobby says, as they carry bags of cornmeal and flour back to the truck. “Your Daddy’s face with a soldier’s pension.”

“I’m sure there’s plenty of solider boys to go around in these parts.”

“Not as many as we’d hoped,” he says. “You’re one of the lucky ones.”

Dean saves them both the trouble of trying to disagree. 

—

He knows the second he flips over the envelope to tight, cursive handwriting. He knows the way that war widows know, when a telegram finally comes, and Dean sinks to the kitchen floor with the letter clutched in his hands.

_To Corporal Dean Winchester,_

_Welcome home. I enquired about your wellbeing to contacts in the BEF, who informed me that you have finally been safely returned to your brother. Despite your extended convalescence in Aberdeen, I am confident you have already heard the news from Moscow. The White Army is no more. Lenin and his Bolsheviks lead the charge, as it were, and the ruling classes of my homeland are joining me in exile. I sent for news of my brother and none has come. I do know for certain that he is not among the higher tiers of Lenin’s Red Army. For that reason, I fear the worst has befallen him. It is unlikely that he made it out of Siberia alive. If he did, he would undoubtedly be counted among Russia’s new leaders, or else I would have received word, if for no other reason than to provide him with news of your health. I am deeply sorry that this must come from me. But like my brother, you are a solider, and it is my understanding that soldiers hold little credence in false hope. Take comfort in the fact that his final wishes have been observed, both for his nation and his heart._

_Cordially,  
Gabriel_

—

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

Dean knows he’s read the letter already, smoothing it out from where he left it crumpled on the floor. They’ve never had much need for privacy and Sam doesn’t seem ready to start minding it now.

“No,” he says, his voice rough. His knuckles are cut up and tacky with dried blood, though there are a few good dents in the wall to match.

“Okay,” Sam says softly, pausing with his fingers hooked around the doorframe. “Do you want some whisky?”

Dean laughs, a wet, heavy sound. “God, yes.”

They drink straight from the bottle, passing it back and forth from where they sit sprawled on the floor in front of the sofa. 

“Do you want to see my letter?” Sam asks, suddenly. His cheeks are flushed from the alcohol and to Dean he looks years younger.

“What letter?” 

“The one I got from Gabriel.”

He hadn’t really considered the fact that Gabriel might have sent Sam anything other than the note Dean hastily drafted on a scrap of Cas’ notebook paper. The idea of Gabriel’s handwriting makes his stomach lurch unpleasantly, but Sam’s eyes are wide and expectant and Dean never had a good enough strategy for saying no.

“Sure,” he says, and grimaces through another mouthful of whisky. 

Sam hurries away to his bedroom and returns with a letter written on thick parchment. It has been folded repeatedly, well worn along each groove. The edges are smudged with dust and dirt from Sam’s fingertips, but he hands it over carefully, as if it’s prized among Sam’s few possessions. 

_To Mr. Samuel Winchester,_

_I seek to explain the enclosed letter from your brother, Corporal Dean Winchester. We had the pleasure of meeting briefly in Siberia, following an attack that proved fatal to many of his countrymen. I understand that the U.S. Army in conjunction with the White Army is currently searching for survivors, though they have been unsuccessful. Your brother had the misfortune to travel north as the search parties headed due south. I hope it brings you some comfort to know that Corporal Winchester is not traveling alone. His companion in Siberia is none other than my youngest brother. In this way, I share in your fear and your doubts, however we can only hope that our brothers may find a way to save each other. They are unlikely companions, but war and winter can sometimes bring about the strangest of bedfellows. Should you receive word from Corporal Winchester earlier than I do, please send a telegram to the address printed below at your earliest convenience. I shall of course do the same._

_Cordially,  
Gabriel_

Dean is silent for a moment, before clearing his throat, taking another hasty gulp of whisky to push the surge of grief back down into his chest. “Did you?” He asks finally, his voice rough.

“What? Send a telegram?”

He nods his head and Sam smiles, taking the letter from him and carefully folding it back up. “Yeah. I think he already knew, though. He never responded and I found out so late anyway.”

“Sorry, Sammy,” he whispers.

“Hey,” Sam says, clasping a hand tight over his shoulder. “I prayed every damn day, and I got everything I asked for. Don’t you apologize.” 

“Maybe that’s where I went wrong,” Dean says, patting Sam’s hand absentmindedly. “Always did tease you about believing in those angel wings.”

Sam watches him for a moment and Dean pretends to stare into the bottle. His lips are bitten and red when he says, “Hey, it’s not too late to start.”

“Believing?” He asks. “I think it might be.”

—

Dean takes to whisky a little too well. He tongues away the bite of alcohol, stares down into the depths of his tin mug, and thinks he finally understands something about his father. 

“It’s called survivor’s guilt.” Sam is standing in the doorway, his arms crossed. Dean doesn’t know how long he’s been awake, or how long he’s been watching him drink in the dark at the devil’s hour.

“Sam,” he sighs, taking another sip. “Go back to bed.”

He doesn’t listen, he never listens. Instead he pulls out a chair and sits across from him. “It’s okay to feel that way, you know. Soldiers feel guilty all the time for - “

“Sam, leave it,” he says around the rim of his mug. 

“Sometimes, it helps to - ”

Dean slams his hand down onto the table, causing Sam to startle, his eyes wide. “It’s not guilt,” he says. “It’s not, okay? I just - ” He’s too drunk for this. He’s been nursing the bottle since the sun went down and his head is swimming with it.

“You just what?” Sam whispers.

“I miss him.” He covers his eyes with the palm of his hand. “Please, Sammy. Please, just go back to bed.”

—

In the sobering light of dawn, Dean realizes that he’s been a shit brother. Sam is worried about him and it’s beginning to show. He looks tired more often than not, drained, like his grief is sapping at Sam’s heart just as readily as it is his own. 

The sun breaks behind overhang and the sky turns from grey to silver. He thinks of the crisp golds and reds of Siberia’s dry horizon as he pours the last of his whisky down the sink. 

The hardwood floors creak with every footstep. He used to know just where to walk to surprise his little brother, but he’s not sure he could manage it anymore. 

Sam is asleep, curled on his side. He looks small, hunched into himself like a child. Dean hesitates for a moment, content to watch him sleep peaceful, before he crawls into bed behind him and presses his forehead to his brother’s shoulder blade. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Sam mumbles, his voice thick with sleep.

“Yes I do.”

Sam inhales on a yawn. “You’ve been to hell and back,” he says. “It’s okay.”

“I won’t turn into Dad,” Dean promises, like it’s a fear of his brother’s and not his own.

“You’re not half as smart as Dad.”

Dean pinches his arm in retaliation and Sam shuffles closer to the edge of the bed in a poor escape attempt. “You little brat.”

Sam hums in agreement and they settle for a moment with Dean’s arm tossed over his waist and Sam’s hanging off the bed, his fingers brushing the floor. He wonders if Sam can feel the slight edge of Cas’ dog tags from beneath his shirt, their warped tin edges and the indents of an inscription he’s never allowed anyone else to read.

“Sammy,” he says, softly.

“Yeah?”

“Can I tell you about it?”

Sam’s hand finds his forearm, gripping hard enough to bruise. “Yeah,” he whispers.

Dean finds it easier to talk without having to look at him, to have his cheek pressed against the silky cotton of Sam’s undershirt with nothing but the flex of his jaw to give him away. He doesn’t tell him about England or France or the bright young boys he met in army barracks, because Dean thinks he must know that already. Every solider comes home with the same beginnings to their own tragedies, so instead Dean starts in Siberia. 

He tells him about the ice and the snow and the perpetual daylight that transitions into the barest glimpse of sun come winter. He tells him about the train-tracks so painstakingly laid across Russia, only to be torn down and destroyed by Bolsheviks as they choked out the remnants of the White Army. 

And finally, with his heart beating to machine gun fire, he tells him about Cas. 

Sam interrupts sometimes, asking questions barely above a whisper, as if he might startle Dean out of this trance. “You met Gabriel at the house,” he says, as he pieces together Dean’s hasty timeline.

It’s not really a question, but Dean nods anyway. “Cas wanted me to go with him to Moscow, the whole time that was his plan.”

Sam doesn’t ask him why he followed a man through the Siberian wilderness, only to retrace his steps. So Dean clears his throat and describes Cas’ careful attention, his silent footsteps and nimble fingers. And finally, when he reaches his fever dream of a Russian medic with an American attaché, Sam whispers a soft, “Oh.”

Dean can feel tears dotting the backs of his hand. “He brought them to his camp.”

“Yeah,” Dean whispers. 

“Instead of meeting them somewhere in the forest, somewhere neutral, he brought them to you.” His voice is shaky and Dean swallows thick.

“Yeah.”

Sam turns then, a jerk of his body and a whiplash of arms until he’s wrapped around Dean. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers into his skin.

Dean can’t answer. He grits his teeth and closes his eyes, and feels his brother’s body shake.

—

Decoration Day is sunny and bright and Dean can smell firewood from a half mile away. He tries his best to think of the dozen or so years he spent adding cuts of skirt beef and potatoes to iron cast grills set over fires of spruce and cedar. But despite his best efforts, the smell of smoke and pine brings him right back to the silhouette of Cas outside their tent, putting together another meal with the scraps they had left.

He stumbles to a halt when he sees the rows of quilts laid out along the grass topped with picnics made ready to eat. There are more people milling through the headstones than Dean has seen in weeks, if not longer.

“Come on,” Sam says softly, steering them both in the direction of their mother’s grave. Dean keeps his head down as Sam smiles and waves to their neighbors, men and women that he used to know so well.

“They must think I’ve gone mad,” Dean says, as they settle in the grass with their rags and warm thermoses and begin scrubbing at the rough stone. He cleans mud and grit from each indented letter of Mary Winchester. Sam is working carefully on her date of birth. 

“Not mad,” he says. “Rude, maybe. But it doesn’t matter what they think.” 

“You’re right about that, at least.”

They work in near silence, soaking in the sounds of banjo strings and children playing hide-and-go-seek between graves. It’s a comforting sound, a familiar one that Dean missed desperately during his first spring in France. He wonders if their father thinks much of Decoration Day, in the solitude of his Kentucky mountains.

When the headstone is clean of dirt and water stains and strung with paper garland, they sit back and unwrap the sally lunns Dean had whipped up before breakfast. 

“You know,” he says through a mouthful of sweet bread. “You can go grab some real food. I ain’t stopping you.”

“I don’t fancy Mrs. Estes asking when I plan on settling down for the third time this week,” Sam says, like it’s any kind of answer. “Besides, I’ve missed your sally lunns.”

“Alright.”

They sit in comfortable silence, while Dean pretends to think about their mother’s blue eyes and Sam tips his head back towards the sky. 

“Dean,” he says eventually, his voice unusually tight and trim, like he’s afraid of what he’s going to say. “I want to show you something.”

They clean up, tucking dirty rags back into their pockets and leaving Mary’s grave with one last touch to the headstone, before Sam is leading him towards the edge of the cemetery gate where plots are more scarce and the grass grows as tall as Dean’s ankles. 

Sam stops abruptly and gestures down at a sandstone slab set into fresh dirt, like the kind they leave for children born without a heartbeat. This one reads _Cas_ in capital letters, and Dean doesn’t get a chance to exhale before Sam is rushing to explain.

“I talked to Caleb,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “I told him he was a solider, that he saved your life and gave up his own. He put it in for free, you know, didn’t even ask me to pay for the engraving. Worked just as well that he couldn’t fit Cassidy, I suppose.”

Dean crouches down to trace the letters with his finger. He knows that there is nothing buried beneath this slab, and even if there were, that it wouldn’t really matter one bit. But somehow it makes him feel better, just to see Cas’ name carved into stone. 

“Thank you,” he whispers, and he tries to smile, to look the part.

“You’re welcome.” Sam is fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “But Dean - maybe don’t tell Dad.” 

Dean looks up at him, and for a moment he looks as scared and uncertain as he’s ever seen him, as if Sam knows something he doesn’t. “I wasn’t exactly planning on it.”

“It’s not that you shouldn’t,” Sam clarifies as Dean brushes the dirt from his knees. “It’s just that - I just don’t think he would understand.”

Dean looks at him for a long, silent moment, before he hooks his arm around Sam’s neck and pulls him into a headlock. “I sure raised you right, didn’t I?”

“I thought you said I wasn’t raised,” Sam mumbles, struggling to get out of his hold. 

“Yeah, that’s true. You sprung up like a weed.” Sam finally breaks free and gives him a playful shove as they walk back towards the sounds of music and laughter.


	4. Chapter 4

When summer is a true thing, more than just a warm breeze from the south, Dean finds himself at Cas’ makeshift grave more and more. After a few woeful afternoons of sitting in silence, he lays his head beside the stone marker and begins to talk. It doesn’t feel all that different than it used to, when he would chatter on about nothing as they walked through the forest. Some days, it feels almost like Cas is listening. 

He tells him all about Sammy, how much he’s grown and how sweetly his heart beats. “He’ll make some girl awful lucky. I think he has his eye on Jessica. Her daddy is one of the only men in town who ain’t a farmer or a rancher, go figure.”

He tells him about their mother, as she’s the closest thing Cas has to a neighbor these days, and the girls who sigh Dean’s name behind shop counters. “If Mrs. Estes thinks Sam ought to be settling down, I can’t imagine what she thinks of me.”

Sam doesn’t say a word about his afternoon trips to the cemetery, until one dry summer morning, after he watched Dean pick wildflowers for Cas’ grave.

“When things got real bad, I wrote you letters,” Sam admits, an idle confession from the steps of their front porch.

“You wrote me letters?”

“Yeah. Even though I knew I couldn’t send them - might not have even if I could.”

Dean pauses, his fist tightening around the thin stems of his bouquet. “Do you still have them?”

“No,” Sam says. “It was better to tear them up and start again. But it kept me sane for the past few years, writing you letters.” 

He sits beside his brother, knocking their knees together, his flowers forgotten on the step beside him. “I would’ve liked to read them.”

“No,” Sam says. “You wouldn’t.”

Dean looks up towards the perfect, clear summer sky. “I wish you never had to write them, that I’d never left at all.”

Sam collects his flowers with a delicate touch and uses one of the long stemmed yarrow to tie the bunch together. “No,” he says. “You don’t.” 

—

Their first real cattle run of the season looms with the dry days and golden sunrises of August. 

“I need to bring my baby to the farrier tomorrow,” Dean says over breakfast. He knows the run is coming and baby’s been out of the posse for a few seasons now.

“Dean,” Sam sighs. His soft, disapproving tone reminds him of Cas. 

“Sammy, I’m going, don’t you even try to convince me otherwise.” 

“I don’t think you’re up for it yet,” he says, setting down his spoon like he’s bracing for a fight. “It’s too early.”

“Too early? I’ve been running since you were a child. You’re still a child!”

“Not anymore,” Sam says. “I manage this ranch now. And Dean, there’s still days when it hurts you to breathe. I know you think I don’t notice, but I do. I notice everything about you. You’re my brother, and I’m not letting you work yourself sick over something like this.”

Dean’s imaginary little brother, the one he held close through the war, was a boy that was just as small and sweet as he’d left him. He never thought of his brother organizing cattle runs or taking trips to the market. He didn’t think he’d be helping Bobby scorch the fields and bringing Ellen corncobs during harvest. Sam has been alone for almost three years, and he’s known that he would have to grow quick for much longer than that.

“You shouldn’t be doing this on your own, not anymore.” 

“You know I’m not,” Sam says, reaching across the table like he’s going for Dean’s hand, but stops short, his palm flat against the finished wood. “I outfit men from town, men I trust, and it takes us two weeks, no more than that.”

“I don’t like it,” Dean says, after a moment. He looks down at his plate of green beans cooked in left over bacon grease. It used to be his favorite, but he can’t stomach the salt anymore. 

“I begged for you not to enlist.” His voice is sharp, like it’s something he’s been saving.

“You knew I was going to get drafted anyway. Volunteering gave us - ”

“No,” Sam says, cutting him off. “I begged you not to go. You don’t get to huff and sigh over a damn cattle run.” He sweeps up his half-empty plate from the table and drops it in the sink with a clatter of heavy ceramic. Sam inherited their father’s gift for finality. Dean stabs another green bean on the end of his fork as the front door slams shut. 

—

“Dean,” Sam calls from the front steps. His voice has the same tempered calm that he used when they found a nest of rattlesnakes beneath the barn. 

He’s holding a telegram, folded straw yellow paper with _Western Union_ printed over the seal of a red postage stamp. No one in Lawrence sends telegrams. Hell, no one outside of the military does. 

“Do you think it’s the wrong address?” He asks. 

“No,” Sam says, turning to him with wide eyes. “The delivery boy had your name on his call list. I think you should open it.”

Dean’s hands shake as he reads the three words stamped in typewriter ink. _He is alive._

“Sammy,” his whispers. Sam grips his shoulder, prying the telegram from his hand with a sharp intake of breath. 

Tears blur Dean’s vision, making the fields beyond them swim like a fever dream. He doesn’t have time to even shutter out his first breath before Sam is pulling him into a hug, his hand gripping hard at the back of Dean’s neck like he thinks he’s going anywhere. 

“This is good,” Sam says, like it’s his own sort of epiphany. “This is real good.”

Dean wants to agree, wants to scream with relief, but instead he sags into his brother’s arms and cries. 

—

“You’re sure you don’t want to stay the week with Ellen?”

Sam has his saddle bag packed and draped over one shoulder. His hat is set back, barely shading his eyes from the low morning sun. 

“I’ll be fine,” Dean says. “You said you’d meet your boys at eight. And I know you usually have them up before dawn. You better head off.” He holds out his arms for a hug and Sam ducks low, pulling him close.

“I’m just worried about you,” Sam says. 

“I’m not getting my hopes up, you don’t have to worry about me keeling over from a broken heart before you get back.” He says it as a joke, but Sam’s eyebrows are set together like he isn’t so sure. 

“Sometimes it’s worse, Dean. I went through this too, don’t forget. It’s worse not being sure. And I spent every waking moment with Bobby and Ellen and Jo because otherwise I might’ve just gone and drown myself in the creek.”

“Creek is awfully shallow,” Dean says, trying his best to cut the tension. Sam may have found comfort in the arms of his makeshift family when the news of Dean’s disappearance finally came, but what was Dean supposed to say to them? What explanation could he give that might account for the way he feels knowing that Cas may be alive somewhere, that his heart might be beating still?

“Dean, I’m not - ”

“Sammy, please. Don’t fret. I’ll sit and write Gabriel, get some more details. And going down to the post office every day will give me an excuse to get out in the morning. Besides, it’ll keep my mind off whether or not you’ve gotten yourself trampled out in Missouri.”

“I’ll be careful,” Sam promises him. 

“I know you will. Now go on, and don’t let them big mean cowboys boss you around.” Sam hugs him goodbye, but not before rolling his eyes hard enough to get them stuck that way. 

Dean watches from the front steps as Sam mounts his horse and heads out towards the pasture where Bobby’s cattle are waiting. From the back he looks like their father, though his hair has grown out longer than John would’ve allowed it when they were children. It suits him.

“Sammy, Sammy,” Dean says aloud to himself. “Who woulda thought?”

—

It takes three days for Dean to finally visit the post office and print in his neatest handwriting a three-word telegram to match Gabriel’s. _Tell me everything._

The clerk at the desk smiles kindly as she calculates the cost and reads Gabriel’s Paris address off the slip of paper Dean had brought with him. “So you’ll be expecting a response?” 

“Yes,” Dean says. “Though likely by mail. How long do you think it will take to get the message to Paris?”

“Oh no more than three days, honey. And a letter from Paris will take about two weeks.” 

“Thanks,” Dean sighs, sliding a few coins across the register desk.

“I suppose I’ll see you in two weeks, Mr. Winchester.” She smiles even sweeter once she sees that there’s no ring on his finger. 

“I look forward to it,” he says, following the right steps even if his voice sounds hollow. 

He didn’t expect anything less, especially with the roads in Europe what they are, fractured and perilous. But now he’s faced with a two-week span of empty time before he can even hope to hear news of Cas. Sammy will be back by then, suntanned and exhausted, and for a moment it seems infinite, like he has years to wait instead of days. 

Dean blinks back tears in the glare of the mid-August sun and thinks it’s time that he and baby go for a ride.

—

Dean fills his days by listing out every chore that was neglected during grazing season and putting himself to work. He pulls rotted planks from Bobby’s fence and replaces the barbed wire that fell in the spring. He fixes the hinges on the stable doors while his baby nibbles on his shoulder in an attempt to steal back his attention. He launders the curtains, spends a full afternoon in front of their little washing press, enjoying the routine of his childhood. He cooks every night, getting back into the grooves of domesticity, practicing new recipes from the mailers Bobby picks up at the grocer. 

Dean keeps tally of his days on a little scrap sheet of newspaper, with x’s carved out in pencil on the outer edge. His count is at twelve when he hears a knock at the door. It’s an irregular thing, these days. Bobby sweeps in and out as he pleases and he and Sam don’t have much else in the way of visitors. 

He wonders if it might be another telegram, so he drops the shirt he’d been mending with the needle still stuck through the collar and flings open the door.

“Dean.” Jo is holding a canning jar of clear liquid, what might be water if he didn’t know it better for moonshine. She’s wearing a hemmed pair of her daddy’s old pants and a black bandana around the length of her hair. She holds out the jar, shaking its contents. “I thought you might like some company.”

Dean gestures her inside, unable to help the mischievous grin she always knew how to bring out when they were kids. “Before supper, Ms. Harvelle?” 

Jo flashes a smile over her shoulder and heads towards the kitchen.

“So,” she says, settled into a chair with two cups of generously poured moonshine in front of her. “You’ve turned into a bit of a hermit in your old age. Wanna talk about it?”

Dean bites back a grimace with his first sip and shakes his head. “Not really. I’m just busy, you know. Loads to do.”

“Uh huh.” Jo could always handle her alcohol better than most. She sips at her cup like it’s coffee. “So you’re not actually becoming an old maid because of something you brought back from Europe? Purely ranch work, is it?”

Dean’s not sure what it is men bring back from Europe, whether it’s diseases of the mind or body, nightmares enough to wake the whole house. “The opposite, maybe,” he says finally, watching the sun begin to set behind the few spare sycamore trees out front. 

“Well, don’t you think it’s time you come back to Kansas then? Sam said to give you space, you know. Made us all promise not to talk to you about it, but God almighty Dean, I hate what this war did to you. Can’t we-”

“I’m waiting on a letter,” Dean says suddenly, interrupting her. He takes a good faith swallow of the last of his cup and stares up at the ceiling. 

“What letter?”

“News,” he says. “On whether someone very important to me is alive or dead.”

Jo looks at him for a long while and Dean doesn’t look away. “Well,” she says, picking up the jar from the center of the table. “We’ve got enough booze left to knock you out until mail time tomorrow.”

Dean smiles, shaking his head. “You always did know how to pass the time.” 

Jo pours them both a generous second helping and raises her tin cup to his in a solemn toast. “To the United States Postal Service and to good news.”

“Good news,” Dean echoes and he takes a drink.

—

There is no mail on the fourteenth day and no mail on the fifteenth either. On the sixteenth, Sam comes clattering through the door, bow-legged and reeking like men and cattle and prairie dust. Dean hugs him long and hard, not caring that he’ll have to wash both their clothes tonight, because despite everything, he missed his brother.

“How’d it go?” He sits Sam down with cool lemonade in their tallest glass.

“Fine. More storms than I’d hoped.” He holds the glass against his forehead. 

“You think the rain would’ve been a welcome bath. You belong in the pig pen.”

Sam snorts. “The rain wasn’t bad, but the thunder was. Spooked one of the horses and he broke his leg trying to get through the cattle. We had to put him down.” 

Sam always was a bit better at putting a shotgun to the base of a horse’s skull. Dean never could bring himself to pull the trigger. Sam gulps down the rest of his lemonade and asks, “Any news?”

“None,” Dean admits. “But hey, at least I’m done worrying about my clumsy little brother.” 

—

Dean waits three weeks to write another telegram. Sam waits outside the post office, biting his fingernails down to scratch while Dean writes, _Contact me immediately. Urgent._ on a little Western Union slip of yellow paper. 

The clerk takes extra care to count his change and says she’s praying for him. He wants to tell her that praying doesn’t do anyone any good, but he thanks her instead, weary of the way her eyes travel the length of his torso like she’s waiting for him to change the subject. 

“I think the lady at the post office expects that I’m checking in as an excuse to see her,” Dean says, an attempt to steer them both away from the heavy weight of Gabriel’s silence.

Sam laughs, taking the bait. “You’d be the worst suitor, if that’s how you went about things. If I were her, I’d run for the hills.”

That night, while Sam sleeps soundly in the master bedroom, Dean has his eyes open to the dark as he considers the fact that his last gentle brush with prayer was when Cossack soldiers stood outside a door jammed shut. The wood held, the war ended, Sammy is safe at home. 

Given the few things Dean has asked for, he gets down on his knees beside his bed and he prays.

—

The girl at the post office frowns and shakes her head, a sympathetic wilt to her shoulders, before Dean even gets through the door. “Nothing today,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

Sam finds him hours later taking a wood axe to the remainder of one of the feeding troths that had gone unused for years and years. He throws himself into it, shattering the wood down to rotted splinters like the storage crates from the Siberian freight train. Sam calls his name from the barn door and he knows he’s spooking the horses but he doesn’t stop until he feels the calluses on his palms begin to tear. 

“Do you feel better?” Sam asks, eyeing the wreckage.

“No,” Dean says, tossing the axe onto the pile. 

“There’s always tomorrow,” he says softly.

“It’s been five weeks,” he says, pushing past his brother. “And I don’t know how many more I can take.”

—

Dean hears the car before he sees it. He doesn’t recognize the turn of the engine well enough to place it as one of the farm trucks or Ellen’s new Ford. He steps out onto the porch just as a black Model T pulls onto the road that leads down to Bobby’s farm. Dean shields his eyes against the sun and watches as it bypasses Bobby’s house and heads straight for their own, trailing a cloud of dust and dirt a mile long. 

Through the glare of the windshield, Dean can make out the hazy reflection of Adam, the grocer’s son, with a cap pulled down over his eyes and his hands set wide on the steering wheel. It isn’t until they’re parked near the horse paddock and a man steps out with a flourish of a long canvas coat that Dean realizes Adam didn’t come alone. They exchange bills through the side window and the engine ignites just as the man turns towards the house.

Dean feels as if all the blood in his body comes crawling to a halt, his heart ceasing to pump anything at all. Despite the newly pressed clothing and shine of freshly styled pomade, the man making slow progress towards their front porch with a leather suitcase clutched in his hand is undeniably Cas. 

Dean forces himself to move, pulling his shaky legs into motion, getting down the steps just as Sam appears at the door behind him, calling his name with a questioning lilt to his voice. Cas has stopped moving at all and is watching him, his expression unreadable, as he sets his suitcase down into the dust. 

When he’s close enough to make out every detail, the dark fan of his lashes and the heavy inset of his eyes, Cas opens his mouth to speak and Dean hits him once, hard, catching him on the cheekbone and making his knuckles sting. Cas presses a hand to his cheek and his fingers come away bloody. 

“You stupid son of a bitch,” he whispers.

Cas says nothing and Dean takes a step back, unsure of what else he’ll do if he strays too close to Cas’ side. But then he hears the sound of the screen door clatter shut and he knows that they’re alone out here, that the prairie is as vast and empty as Siberia. Cas cups both hands at the base of Dean’s skull and pulls him close as if inspecting every inch of him, their foreheads nearly pressed together. 

Dean lets out a shuttering breath as Cas finally folds his arms tight around his shoulders. He holds him with one hand still lingering just below his ear, and for a moment, all Dean can think of is that he doesn’t smell like winter anymore. Every trace of snow has left his skin and now Cas smells like laundry starch and day-old cigarette smoke from the train. 

“It’s okay,” Cas says, his lips against the skin of Dean’s neck. 

Dean closes his eyes and whispers, “I thought you were dead.” He feels his lungs shutter and shake with the effort it takes to keep himself from sobbing. The shock of grief he has carried since he left Russia filters through to a numbness in his fingertips and ringing in his ears.

“I am not.” Cas pulls back, blood drying in a watercolor smear beneath his eye. “And you are not. The English medicines saved you. The Americans brought you home. I am not sorry.” He accent is subtle and difficult to place, but altogether different than how he used to speak.

“You got yourself a better teacher than me, huh?” Dean asks, wiping his eyes with a distracted brush of his fingertips. Cas’ hands linger on his shoulders, guiding him closer.

“Yes,” Cas agrees. He’s smiling now, like he has some mischievous comment on the tip of his tongue, the way Sammy used to look as a child. 

“You’re not forgiven,” Dean tells him. “But you’d better come inside. It looks like we scared Sammy off.”

Cas doesn’t let him go, not right away. First he combs his fingers through Dean’s hair, offsetting his side part, scratching his nails gently down the base of his neck. 

“You are stronger,” he says softly, his breath against Dean’s ear.

“Yeah, well, I haven’t been starving for eight months.” 

“And young,” Cas adds, pulling back, his thumb ghosting over the stubble on Dean’s chin. “In Sibir, you looked older.”

“Probably the beard,” Dean mumbles, looking away. 

He hums an uncertain tone before letting Dean go and reaching for his suitcase. “I would like to meet Sammy,” Cas says, leading the way back to the house as if they’re still in the woods and he expects Dean to fall a few steps behind. 

Dean calls his brother’s name as Cas drags his dusty loafers along the the mat. Sam steps out of the kitchen the second the door hits the frame. 

“Hey,” he breathes, eyeing them both, lingering for a moment on the dried smear of blood on Cas’ cheek. 

Cas holds out his hand like it’s something he practiced, but Sam pulls him into a hug instead, enveloping his body and whispering something into Cas’ ear that Dean can’t quite make out. Cas nods once Sam finally lets him go.

“Well,” Sam says, walking towards the hall tree and plucking his hat from highest hook. “There’s pork chops on ice and we still have a few cobs. So I’m off to Ellen’s. Don’t stay up.”

“Ellen’s?” Dean splutters, barely keeping up with Sam’s rapid-fire speech 

“Yes,” Sam says, turning to him with a meaningful look in his eye. “I’ll likely stay the night. I haven’t seen Elle or Jo in weeks. We need time to catch up.” He doesn’t wait for him to answer, instead he turns to Cas and says, “It is truly an honor to meet you. I’ll see you again tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Cas says idly, as if he’s not fully sure of what’s going on. “Tomorrow.”

“Wait,” Dean calls, running after him just before the screen door clatters shut. “Wait, Sammy, you don’t have to leave. We’re not - ” he pauses then, unsure what he even intended to say.

“Hey,” Sam says gently. “Don’t think too much on it. You two need some space, you have a lot of catching up to do.”

“But I want - ”

“Tomorrow,” Sam says. “I’ll meet him good and proper tomorrow. But tonight, I think you might need this.”

Dean nods, distracted and heavy. 

“I’m so, so happy for you Dean. So don’t take this the wrong way, but get the fuck back inside.” 

Dean waits until Sam takes off towards stables around the side of the house before he even reaches for the door.

He finds Cas in the kitchen, inspecting each surface as if the borax scrubbed sink is part of a museum exhibit. He still looks like a solider from this angle, his hands clasped behind his back, his hair cut neat and short with a straight razor at the base of his neck, leaving just enough length to curl out of the hold of his pomade. 

“Find anything interesting?” Dean asks, as Cas peaks idly out the window that looks over the southern field. 

“Different,” he says, turning to face him. His eyes are bright and clear against the yellow haze of Kansas. 

He has spent countless nights imagining what Cas’ childhood home might look like, what Petrograd had to offer its children. He’s wondered how long Cas was in the snow, before he plucked Dean out of that battlefield, and how long he stayed after the medics left. More than once he imagined asking Gabriel if any of their other brothers made it out alive, or if the whole of their family was lost to the cause of the revolution.

Dean clutches the back of his chair, his head bowed, unable to think of anything to say. 

He murmurs Dean’s name from across the room and he shudders when Cas sets his hands on his shoulders. He gently forces him to straighten and turn, fingers following the curve of his spine.

Cas sighs his name just as Dean catches sight of the suitcase left in the kitchen doorway behind them. He meets Cas’ eyes and asks, “How long? How long can you stay?”

“Two weeks.”

He nods, blinking back a second onslaught of tears, furious at himself for the burning in this throat. “And then you’ll return to Russia?”

“Russia?” Cas asks, thumbing away a stray tear from Dean’s cheek. “No, D.C.”

—

Dean sets the kettle on the stove and busies himself with coffee grounds while Cas watches from the kitchen table. Dean needs to keep his hands busy and Cas must know that all too well because he clears his throat and begins to explain in slow, stilted English, how he remained in Siberia fighting off the Cossacks and the dregs of the White Army until finally victory was declared in Moscow. Cas returned to the newly established capital as a hero of the east, a general of the highest distinction. Once the political chaos died down into the beginnings of structure, he traded in all of his medals and newfound influence for one thing: a diplomatic post in America.

“It was the only way,” Cas says, setting down his mug. 

Dean swallows tepid coffee past the knot in his throat. “Your home,” he says, finally. “Don’t you miss home?”

He smiles, looking indulgent, sparing a quick glance around the autumn bright kitchen. “Petrograd is not a place to miss. Not like your home, your Kansas.”

Cas reaches for his hand, tracing the lines of his palms. “Maybe,” he concedes. “Maybe I will one day miss my country. But not now.”

“I can learn to make borscht,” Dean blurts out, his fingers threaded through Cas’ own. 

Cas laughs then, a rare, low sound, and Dean wonders if he’s ever heard it before now. “I would rather kvass,” he says, smiling still. “I can teach you.”

“And I’ll help you with English,” Dean offers in return.

“I have tutors who teach at university. We have lessons each morning.” He says, with a single raised eyebrow.

“Eh, you’re probably right. I’ll just end up making you worse.”

“Probably,” Cas agrees and Dean laughs as well, feeling for all the world like he’d forgotten how, only to be reminded in a rush of afternoon heat.

They talk until the sun goes down, gilding the cabinets and casting shadows in the hall. Dean recounts every childhood adventure that sent him flying past the kitchen windows with Sam toddling along behind him. Cas’ stories are just as nostalgic, but tinged with something closer to neglect. He tells Dean how quick he was as a child, how easily he could snatch fruit from the vendors at the market, and how well he could pull himself over gated walls when he was caught. 

“And what about Gabriel?” Dean asks. “Was he ever caught?”

Cas smiles like he expected the question. “Gabriel would be a poor thief,” is all he says. 

Dean allows himself a handful of attempts to uncover the mysterious branches of his family, but Cas never rises to the challenge. In return, he seems content to hear about Sam and Dean and asks nothing of their dead mother or absentee father. Dean wonders, not for the first time, what happens to a bastard child in a city like Petrograd. 

“Tell me of your holiday,” Cas asks, as Dean coats the thawed pork chops in flour while the oil begins to heat.

“What holiday?” 

“With food, eating. The holiday in November.” Cas watches his every move, like he’s a little surprised that Dean is half as competent in a kitchen as Cas is over a campfire. 

“Thanksgiving,” he says, glancing back at him with a smile. 

“Yes,” Cas echoes, brushing up against him, leaning on the countertop. “Thanksgiving.” 

Dean tells him about the War to Preserve the Union, how old president Lincoln declared a cease fire and men from both sides met across the battle fields for chicken and fire roasted corn and peaches preserved in sticky syrup. 

“Some folks don’t celebrate it,” Dean says, as the oil sizzles and pops. “On account of some left over sore feelings about the war. But most everyone in Kansas sits down to eat a big Thanksgiving meal if they can afford to.”

“When did the war end?” Cas asks. Despite his government funded English lessons, his knowledge of American history seems spotty.

“Hell, about fifty years ago.”

Cas smiles, a wry shake of his head. “We can be angry for longer, in my country.”

“Fifty years is pretty long for a grudge. Can’t imagine what you Russians hold against each other.” Dean says, laughing. 

They eat dinner out on the porch. He offers Cas a glass of scotch whisky before they set their plates and Dean tries not to look surprised when he accepts. “No war,” Cas says knowingly, savoring a sip. 

Autumn finally arrived with the beginning of October and their usual temperate Kansas evenings have grown cool and sharp. Cas seems unfazed, though he drapes his trench coat across their laps, refusing any of Dean’s complaints that they have blankets enough in the linen cupboard. Despite his initial fears that he would never survive another winter in Kansas, Dean doesn’t really feel the cold from where he sits.

They both break their meal with whisky and Dean’s cup is empty before he’s even gotten to his corn. He leans into the heavy warmth of the alcohol and asks, “What’d Sammy say to you?”

“I think that is between us,” Cas says, smiling around the rim of his cup. 

“Really,” Dean sighs, playfully exasperated. “You just met him and you’re already siding with my brother over me.”

Cas hums, squeezing the tight muscle above Dean’s knee from beneath their makeshift blanket. “Maybe you did not notice. I have not sided with anybody else since the day we met.”

Cas is watching him and Dean swallows hard. “I did notice.”

“Good,” Cas says, pressing a whisky flavored kiss to the base of his ear. “I hoped I would not need to explain.”

It doesn’t take more than a few sips from Cas’ cup and the weight of some heavy, aching silence before they’re stumbling back inside, their dinner plates left half finished on the porch. 

The first time they kiss, really kiss, Dean realizes he’s been overthinking it. Cas’ hands might be callused and rough as they slide down the length of Dean’s throat, but then again there’s not a girl in Lawrence with lady-smooth skin like they’ve got out in New England. The scratch of stubble against his lips is a new sort of pleasure, but everything else feels just the same, natural and easy and a little bit overwhelming, like kissing should. 

Cas sets a hand against his chest and pushes him down onto the bed and Dean’s heart beats just as wildly as it had when he was fourteen. They both barely fit, but Cas doesn’t appear to notice, stripping them of their clothing with all the military efficiency Dean thought he might have left in Russia. Cas’ hands pass over every inch of his chest, as if reassuring himself that neither of them are at risk of starvation anymore, and Dean shudders at his touch.

“You are,” Cas begins, dipping his mouth down to trace a scar along his sternum with the flat of his tongue. “I do not know the English.” 

“Jesus, Cas, now is not the time.”

“Like this,” he says, demonstrating still, scratching his thumbs down the dusky pink of Dean’s nipples. He yelps, bucking upwards, causing Cas to laugh.

“Sensitive,” he gasps. “You bastard. Now get on with it.” 

“Sensitive,” Cas murmurs into his skin as he kisses every inch from the freckled tops of Dean’s shoulders to the hollows of his collarbones. “I will remember.” 

It isn’t until Cas climbs off of him, tossing his socks behind his shoulder and laying himself down at his side that Dean sees the gaps of shadows on both feet where his toes should be. Cas notices his sharp intake of breath and pulls him into a soft kiss, murmuring a Russian word of explanation into his mouth.

“Ice and snow,” he says, followed by a thoughtless shrug of his shoulders. “Sometimes the skin dies and you have to remove.”

“Frostbite,” Dean breathes. Cas is missing the last two toes of his right foot and most of his left is down to the first knuckle. 

“Long time ago,” Cas assures him. He steals his attention back with another kiss, licking his way across Dean’s teeth, tasting of alcohol.

He groans into his mouth at their newfound position. Dean’s cock rubs incessantly along the cut of Cas’ hip and he feels every bit the teenager, unable to catch his breath. “They don’t hurt?” He asks, his eyes fluttering closed.

Cas chuckles, pulling Dean closer. He worms a hand between the flush of their bodies and rubs his palm against the head of Dean’s cock, gathering slick before stroking down over both of them. “Nothing hurts,” he says, open-mouthed. 

Dean hasn’t touched himself like this in over a year and he feels the edge of orgasm sooner than he would like. “Stop,” Dean gasps, grabbing Cas’ wrist and holding tight. “I’m going to come, if you don’t stop.”

“That is the point,” Cas breathes into his ear, and resumes stroking him in a slow, lazy rhythm.

Dean clenches his jaw, grinding his back teeth in an attempt to stay silent. But then Cas reaches down to cup his balls and he grunts in surprise, realizing suddenly that they’re completely alone. He moans Cas’ name, drawing out the vowels, causing Cas to smile into his hair. He whispers something then, as Dean squeezes his eyes shut, but the sounds are lost to the heavy gasps of his breathing. It could have been Russian or English or a combination of the two and it wouldn’t have mattered much at all, because the deep, familiar timber of Cas’ voice in his ear is all it takes to send him over the edge.

Cas pulls back for just a moment, drawing it out, moving slowly as Dean comes against both of their stomachs. He smears one hand over Dean’s hip and when he finally opens his eyes, Cas is inches away, watching him intently. 

“Don’t be weird, Cas,” the mumbles, rolling over and taking up Cas’ lose hold. He strokes his hand up and down, his knuckles brushing against the oversensitive head of his own cock, making him gasp. Really, it’s not all that different than the slow, awkward phase of teenage experimentation. It takes him a moment to get his rhythm right, but that moment is all Cas needs to come into Dean’s hand, shaking but silent. 

Neither of them says anything at all and they stay where they are, sprawled beside each other with come drying on their skin. Dean drifts in and out for a moment, the kind of sleep that he doesn’t even notice until he’s jolted awake by a phantom fall. 

“Sleep,” Cas says, pulling a quilt up over them both from where it had fallen at the foot of the bed. “We wash in the morning.”

“God,” he mumbles against the skin of Cas’ neck, burying himself deep, feeling for once what Sammy must have felt when he clung so hard to Dean as a child. “Let’s pray Sam doesn’t come home before sunrise. He’ll be in for a surprise.” 

“Will he be - ” Cas pauses, sounding unsure. “Angry?”

“Nah,” Dean says, his voice soft. “I taught him better.”

“That is good,” he says and he sounds like he might have something else to add, but Dean is asleep before he gets the chance. 

— 

Dean wakes to Cas’ silhouette beside him, his back against the wall and his head tilted towards the window, staring up at the cloud-covered night sky. It’s so familiar that his stomach aches, a phantom pain. 

“When I first got back, my body didn’t follow the sun. Sometimes I’d wake hours before dawn and other times I’d sleep past lunch.” His voice is steady, warmer than it was in Siberia, and when Cas looks down at him Dean is sure that he’s thinking the same thing. 

Cas reaches out, catching Dean’s hand and pulling it to his lips. He’s sure he’s blushing, the horrible curse of his mother’s fair skin, because his ears burn the moment Cas touches his knuckles. It feels strange, a memory from childhood, Sammy snickering behind bared teeth.

“I do not sleep long,” he says, pressing a kiss to the inside of Dean’s wrist. He’s still not used to feeling his bare skin, the heat of his crossed legs bumping against Dean’s knees. 

“Even now?” He asks. 

“Yes,” Cas says. “Since I was small. And now I would rather.” 

“Be awake?” Dean asks. 

“Yes. Especially here.” He says.

They’re silent for a moment, as Cas explores every line across his callused palm, searching in the dark for the creases in his fingers. 

“Kansas,” Cas says suddenly, still a little stilted, like he’s getting used to the shape of the word. “Not so different to Sibir.” 

“I thought so too, when I used to look out at the snow. I guess it’s even more similar, now that you’re here.”

Cas hums, a bit unsure, like he doesn’t quite agree. “It will not be like there.”

“No,” Dean agrees, pulling at Cas’ hand until he’s sprawled beside him. “It won’t be.” 

—

Cas’ lips are trailing down the notches in his spine, making it as low as the bottom of his shoulder blade before starting all over again. When Dean rolls over, Cas’ eyes look as bright and clear as he’s ever seen them in the blue shade of his bedroom. 

“It’s late, huh?” He whispers, unwilling to break the spell of mid-morning.

Cas hums. “And Sammy is home.”

“Shit,” Dean says, sitting up in bed. “Is he really? How do you know?”

“Noises from outside,” Cas says. “I think he fed animals. Was still dark.”

“Jesus, I didn’t even refill the trough last night. He’s gonna be pissed.” 

“I can cook breakfast,” Cas offers, sounding amused. “Maybe lunch.”

Dean groans into his hands.

“Dress,” Cas says, with a quick peck to his lips. “I would like to meet your brother.”

Sam isn’t in the kitchen when they finally pull themselves from the warmth of the bed and clean quickly with cool water from the washbasin. He’s not in the master bedroom either. Instead, he’s out plucking beets from the garden, shaking them off against his blue jeans and watching the soil rain down over his boots. Sam looks up, shading his face against the sun, and grins.

“What’s so funny?” Dean asks.

Sam laughs and laughs as he describes how their dishes were still on the porch when he returned home in the morning, picked half to crumbs by buzzards and glazed over with dust. He balanced their plates like a bar maid and retrieved Cas’ trench coat from where it lay cascading down the porch steps and he doesn’t stop grinning over it until Dean punches his shoulder.

“Shut up,” he says. “Anyway, I’m starving.” 

Despite Cas’ offer of breakfast and Sam’s insistence that he can fry up bacon just fine, Dean takes comfort in his customary position in front of the stove, while Sam and Cas sit across from each other at the kitchen table. 

“Since I found out Dean would be stationed in Siberia, I read all I could about Russian history. Last summer, I could name every tsar. But I know that things have changed, too quickly for any books to be written,” Sam says with a wry smile. 

Cas nods eagerly and pours himself into a heartfelt defense of the revolution. He stumbles at first, as if he’s uncomfortable using English for more than just whispering into Dean’s ear as he sleeps. But eventually he finds his footing, with Sam’s gentle encouragement. 

“When I was little, farmers would get hanged for bringing goats to eat grasses near royal lands. Many families executed for theft. But now there will be enough food for all, enough money for all.” 

Dean stands in front of the stove and flips bacon with metal tongs and acts like he’s not listening. He concentrates on the comforting sound of spitting grease and wonders what exactly it was the Americans were fighting for all the way out in Siberia.

“You must be proud of what the revolution has accomplished,” Sam says and Dean can hear him smiling.

“I am very proud of my country. But many of our inspirations come from here.” 

“Well, our revolution didn’t end up serving everyone, in the end.”

“No,” Cas agrees. “We will have true equality.” He sounds so certain, and Sam hums in approval as Cas continues. “Our revolution is made from women as much as men, from educated and not. The church will not decide morals and rank anymore.”

Dean turns then, risking a glance over his shoulder and Sam sends him a meaningful look over the kitchen table.

“I hope Americans will learn from the Soviets,” Sam says, as Dean begins to plate up bacon and scrape at the grease, removing enough grit to start on their eggs. 

“Alright,” Dean says loudly. “That’s enough politics at the breakfast table. Thought I taught you better than that, Sam.”

Sam murmurs his less than heart felt apologies and Cas smiles around the rim of his coffee cup and Dean rolls his eyes at them both, cracking eggs into the skillet like any late-start Sunday morning.

—

Sam clears their dishes, shooing them both from the kitchen with a snap of his dishrag. So Dean steps out into the afternoon sun and steers Cas towards the paddock where he can already hear his baby’s indignant snuffing over being penned up for most of the day. She’s never taken well to strangers, half the reason Dean loves her so. She tolerates Sam and Bobby, always had a soft spot for their father, but will hardly raise her head for anyone else.

“This is my baby,” Dean says, resting his cheek along her neck. “She’s my best girl.”

Cas smiles at him, soft and sweet with just a slight shake of his head. Then he clicks his tongue and makes a quiet, soothing hum at the back of his throat as he reaches out for her muzzle. She seems apprehensive at first, but with Dean’s gentle encouragement, she allows Cas to pet her. 

“She is very beautiful,” Cas says, finding the groove of her forehead and following it with the tips of his fingers.

“Well I don’t need you to tell me that.” 

Dean teaches him to brush her, despite Cas’ insistence that he knows quite well how to groom a horse. 

“She’s not just a horse,” Dean says, gently pressing his forehead to her own. Cas makes more of an effort after that, carefully brushing along her flank as Dean tends to her hooves. 

“How long do you have her?” 

Dean smiles up at him from where he’s crouched on the floor. “Nearly my whole life. My father got her when I was maybe five, Sammy was still just a baby. For years, he was the only one she’d let go near her, much less ride her. She watched us grow though, or grew with us more like,” he says, with an affectionate pat to her flank. “So as soon as I was big enough to go riding, she and I were inseparable. She tolerates Sammy, though.” 

Dean hands Cas a couple of crab apples pocketed from the tree out front to feed her. She doesn’t warm much to him, but she doesn’t nip at his fingers either, so Dean considers it good progress. 

He’s leading her out into the paddock, shading his eyes against the sudden glare of the afternoon sun, when he hears the sound of Bobby’s voice. 

“Well there you are,” Bobby says, leaning against the paddock fence.

He sighs Bobby’s name at the ground just as Cas steps out to meet him. He sees Bobby immediately, and nods his head in wary acknowledgement.

“Guess I should introduce you,” he says, letting his baby roam and stepping up to the fence with Cas at his side. “This is Cas, he’s - ”

“Your guardian angel, I’ve heard,” Bobby says, holding out a hand.

Cas takes it, looking slightly lost, his brows knit together as he murmurs his own name.

“Well Cas,” he says. “I’m Bobby. Something of an uncle to these two knuckleheads, I guess.”

“Sam’s been running his mouth?” Dean asks.

“No, but the grocer’s boy sure has. It’s a small town, Dean, and we don’t get much in the way of visitors except those suitcase farmers, and he sure ain’t that.”

“Jesus,” he mumbles, rubbing at his eyes. “I’m gonna have to hide you away, aren’t I?”

“No,” Cas answers. “I will meet your family.”

Bobby grins wide, like Cas doesn’t quite get the joke. “It’ll be a sight more than family interested in you, boy. Though the Harvelle’s have extended an offer for dinner tonight.”

“Now that was definitely Sam.”

“I bet it was,” Bobby says. “And if I were you, I’d accept. You know better than to avoid Elle, so you might as well get it over with.”

—

Dean has always been thankful for his little brother, but right now, seated around Ellen’s heavy oak table, he could kiss his scuffed up boots. Sam was born a natural charmer, able to talk his way in and out of so many little nooks and crannies. John said it was that brain of his, inherited from their mother along with the hazel of his eyes, but Dean always thought it was something closer to his heart. 

“So you’re a city boy,” Ellen says, wary and cold once she realizes that this man in front of her is no farmer.

“A solider,” Sam corrects easily. “And now, a diplomat. Ain’t that right, Cas? How have you found the capital?”

Jo, bless her, takes the hint of Sam’s feet nudging her’s under the table and asks after the vast sprawl of the White House, whether or not he’s had the chance to see it in person.

“They are always building,” Cas says, pushing idly at a stack of mashed potatoes but not really eating anything at all. “I like this about America, always making more.” 

“Except out west,” Bobby grumbles into his mug. “Ain’t nothing getting done out here.”

Dean snorts into his plate.

“You think that’s funny, boy?” Bobby turns on him, thunderous. 

“Sammy told me you were complaining left and right about the suitcase farmers buying up prairie land, and now you’re saying nothing’ll ever get built.” Dean says as Sam gives Bobby an apologetic shrug from across the table and Cas tries to hide his smile from behind his napkin. 

“Alright, alright.” Ellen says, breaking them up before Bobby can even point his finger in response. “Dean, have more cornbread. You could use the weight.”

“In that case, I’ll take Sam’s.” He snatches a wedge of butter soaked cornbread from the edge of his plate before either of them can protest. “He should’ve stopped growing half a foot ago.”

“He’s jealous,” Sam explains to Cas, playing at a whisper while Jo grins around her fork. “When he left for the war, I was as high as his waist.”

“Shoulder,” Dean says, savoring a crumbling piece of corn bread. “And I haven’t yet forgiven you for it.”

Sam pretends to protest while Jo quietly asks after Cas’ plans to return to his country this year, whether winter there is truly all just dark and ice like people say. Bobby pretends not to listen and Ellen serves up another helping of boiled green beans and for one fragile moment, Dean feels like he’s just arrived home.

—

On a lazy, bright afternoon, Dean brings Cas to meet his mother, since he figures it’s only a matter of time until he ends up acquainted with the whole damn town anyway. He follows Dean through the cemetery, his hands clasped behind his back like it’s a military procession, and when they make it to the acid scrubbed headstone he bows slightly, his spine rigid and straight.

“It’s not like that here, you know.” Dean says gently, gesturing for Cas to sit down beside him. “We visit graves on holidays or just to talk. Sammy came here a lot as a kid, though he didn’t remember Mom at all. But I think he found it comforting. Anyway,” he waves a hand. “You don’t have to stand on ceremony.”

Cas nods his head as he gingerly lowers himself onto the ground and after that, neither of them says very much at all. It’s a warm day for early October, with the sun bright above them and the sky a perfect, cloudless stretch of blue. Crickets shift through the uncut grass of the open lots, a backdrop of mechanical ticks, like hundreds of little second hands following a clock face. 

Cas’ eyes are closed to the sun, his face tilted upwards like he hasn’t felt warmth in years. 

“Do you believe in God?” Dean asks, suddenly. “You know, Jesus Christ and all that?”

Cas cracks open one eye. “My mother did,” he says, after a moment or two of silence. 

Dean hums and nods his head, because his mother did too. 

“Sometimes,” Cas admits. “In Sibir, I thought of saints.” 

“Like Mary?” Dean knows Mother Mary from the little statue in front of the chapel, made from carved wood and painted to resemble robes of garish blue and orange-blonde hair. _Just like your Momma, boy,_ Ellen used to say, _heaven-sent._

“We have many saints,” he says. “I think, more than Americans. I thought of Saint John iz Tobolsk many times. He is one saint of Sibir.” 

“Your places have saints too, huh?” Dean asks. “Any saints of Petrograd?”

“Not yet,” Cas admits. “But Russia makes saints each day.”

They fall silent again, until Cas murmurs, “I do not know why, that I think of them.”

“I feel the same way about angels.” Like the whisper of his mother’s voice, her insistence that angels were watching over him, is something Dean never quite shook. “God or luck,” Dean says. “Someone’s been kind to us. And I don’t think it matters which. Now come on, I have something else to show you.” 

He pulls Cas to his feet and leads him down the well worn path to the little, child-sized gravestone set into the earth. The grass grows tall and wild in the unsold plots towards the edge of the cemetery, but the grass around Cas’ stone is trimmed neat and low. 

Dean never thought to ask if Cas’ English lessons extended much to reading, but he knows he recognizes the stone carved letters for what they are. He kneels down and traces each indent, his lips pressed together in a hard line. 

“Sammy did it,” Dean says. “Well not himself, he talked to Caleb, the owner, and he put it in. I come here a lot, came here anyway.”

Cas does apologize then, whispered more to the grave than to Dean. He doesn’t regret slipping morphine into his water and carting him off to the care of the White Army, Cas has made that much clear. But instead, he says he wishes he had tried harder to get word out of Russia, to send notice when he could. 

“I get it,” Dean assures him, settling into his usual spot, the ground indented from his body weight. “You had a lot going on, between winning a revolution and settling in a new country. I certainly don’t blame you.” 

“No,” Cas insists, softly. “Should have tried more. I am sorry.”

“It’s alright, really. And it wasn’t all bad. I spent so many hours here, talking to stone, and it helped.” 

Cas entwines their fingers in the grass and squeezes tight. “What did you say?” He asks.

They both lie back onto the dry autumn earth as Dean describes his lazy afternoons confessing every idle thought to an empty grave. “Nothing interesting,” he admits.

Cas hums, a contrary sound. “I disagree.” 

—

Cas is quick to get his hands dirty. He wakes at dawn for chores, and does his work as quick as Sammy who’s been mucking stables and herding cattle his entire life. He keeps an eye on Dean, never wandering too far. 

On especially chilly mornings, before the sun rises, there’s a slight wheeze to Dean’s lungs that Cas never fails to hear.

Sam spends more and more time away, though Dean hasn’t quite worked out where it is he goes in the early afternoon. He thinks he might have a girl tucked away somewhere, says as much to Cas and feels him smile against the skin of his neck, sliding his hands across the chaise until he’s half way into Dean’s lap, coaxing him into a kiss.

“If he has a girl,” Cas begins, punctuating each word with a lingering kiss to curve of his neck. “Then there is much time.”

“My mother loved this couch,” Dean tells him absentmindedly. 

Cas hums as he undoes the first button of Dean’s trousers. “It is a lovely couch.”

Dean gasps his name. “That’s not the point.” 

By the time Cas is on his knees in front of him, pressing reverent, open-mouthed kisses to the head of his cock, Dean doesn’t hear a thing. He doesn’t hear it when the door swings open, two rooms away, or when Sam quietly calls Dean’s name and then Cas’, as if he’s afraid of waking them from a much needed afternoon nap. 

What they do hear with perfect clarity is Sam’s yelp of surprise and the clatter of his wicker basket hitting the ground, sending hedge apples rolling across the wooden floor. 

“Sam,” Dean snaps, scrambling to his feet and pulling up his trousers as Cas watches him with a horrified expression. Sam turns tail and runs with some mumbled apology, his cheeks bright red like he’d been out in the July sun.

“Dean,” Cas begins, his eyes wide. 

“It’s fine,” he says, pressing a quick kiss to his lips as he straightens both their clothes. “I’m just gonna go talk to him.” 

He tries to sound confident, big brother reassured, but really Dean’s stomach is turning acid because there’s a big difference between Sam’s silent, implicit support and catching his brother with his pants around his ankles. 

“I am so sorry,” Cas says, but Dean waves him off. 

“Don’t worry. I’ll be right back, but maybe it’s best if you stay here.”

He finds Sam back in the stables, nervous and twitchy while he tries to pretend he’s been trimming lantern wicks all along. Dean sits beside him on a new barrel of unrolled hay. He clears his throat, ready to speak, but Sam beats him to it with a slightly hysterical laugh, ringing just a note too high. “God, I’m so embarrassed.”

“Look, Sam, I know it’s - ”

“Imagine how you’d feel if you walked in on Mom like that,” he says, cutting him off, but this time he’s smiling. 

“Gross, Sam! And I’m not your Mom.”

Sam gives him a kind of helpless shrug. “It was the best comparison I could find. Sorry I interrupted, but in my defense, I made every effort to announce myself.”

“So, we’re good?” He asks, after a moment.

Sam scoffs, nudging at him with his shoulder. “Of course we are, you idiot. I’m just trying to figure out how Cas and I will ever be able to face each other over the dinner table again.”

“We can eat on the porch,” Dean suggests. “It’s not too cold out before the sun goes down.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he says, laughing. “Honestly, I can’t imagine what he sees in you.”

Dean swats him on the back of the head and Sam snickers. “You wanna come inside with me?” Dean asks.

“Nah, I think I’ll go on a ride. Give you two time to cool off and try to forget that I saw a bit more of my brother than I ever wanted to,” Sam says with a wink and Dean flushes, despite the chill in the damp shade of the stables. “Apologize to Cas for me, will you? He looked about ready to die of shock.”

“He’s probably in there having a fit,” Dean admits.

“Go on then,” Sam says. “And by the way, I brought in some hedge apples for jam. You’ll have to collect them off the floor though.” 

—

One evening, after they’ve washed up from supper, Dean finds Cas sitting on a footstool and threading his fingers through a slicked cord of cracked black leather. He recognizes Cas’ dog tags after a moment, the telltale jingle of metal. 

“Where’d you find those?” He asks.

“Bed table,” Cas says. “In the drawer.” 

“I always wondered,” he begins, taking a seat on the floor in front of him. “Why you didn’t take mine.”

“It was not safe,” Cas says quietly. “And you were not - ” he pauses, breathing deep. “You were not speaking, talking. They needed to know to get you home, home to Kansas.”

“Well,” Dean says, inspecting him by the dim lantern light. “I’m home now. You can always take them back with you, if you’d like.”

Cas smiles, holding out the dog tags for Dean to take. “Yes,” he says, watching as Dean loops them around his throat and tucks the cord beneath his shirt. “I would.”

—

Their father’s monthly letter comes in with the post and Sam grinds his jaw as he reads and whisks it away before Dean even gets a chance to reach for it. “What’s it say, Sammy?”

“Nothing. The same as always, a whole lotta nothing.” Sam puts on his hat and pauses in the doorway. “You and Cas are handling dinner tonight?”

“Yeah, and you’d better be in and washed before seven.”

Sam tips his hat as a promise and Cas watches him go, humming a questioning sound in the back of his throat. “Sammy never really got along with our father,” he says, and when Cas doesn’t question him further Dean wonders if he’s thinking of his own father and brothers. 

It isn’t until they’re cutting into tacky biscuit dough with the rim of a glass that Dean finally rushes out with it, unable to keep himself from asking if Cas’ family made it out alive.

Cas is silent as he dutifully transfers his biscuits onto the baking tray. “My brothers were not good men,” he says, finally.

“And Gabriel?”

He frowns, an unconscious purse of his lips. “He tries, sometimes.”

Dean knows that Cas doesn’t want to talk about it, that he wants their little makeshift family dinners removed from any discussions of war or famine or the shadowed edges of his adolescence. But if Dean doesn’t ask now, Siberia will haunt him for the rest of his life. “And Anna? Did she make it out?”

Cas tenses for just a moment and then shakes his head, a barely visible jut of his chin.

“I’m sorry.” Dean says, reaching up to grab his shoulder with flour-dusted hands. Cas doesn’t seem to mind; instead he just leans into his touch, his head bowed. “She was a good solider.”

“Yes,” Cas says. “Many Bolsheviks had nothing to lose. Fight for the White Army or Red Army, starve in Moscow or Sibir.”

“But not Anna?” Dean guesses, because he’s always known from the way her voice travelled and the impatient bare of her teeth that she didn’t come from the streets. 

“She lost moneys and safety and family,” Cas says, looking up at him. “She hated men who feared loss. She thought them weak.”

“I don’t think it’s weak,” Dean says softly, selfishly. 

Cas shrugs like hasn’t quite made up his mind either way. “It does not matter now,” he says. 

“No,” Dean agrees. “I guess it doesn’t.” 

—

One of Bobby’s heifers is pregnant with twins and begins calving in the middle of the night while the first frost settles in the fields. It’s bitter cold when Sam wakes them, apologetic but desperate for another pair of hands. “We might lose her, if we’re not quick.”

“Can I help?” Cas asks, keeping the quilts tucked around Dean’s shoulders the second his breathing starts to stutter with the cold. “Just hands, or knowledge?” 

“You’ll work just fine,” Sam says. “Come on, I can show you what to do.”

“I can do it,” Dean insists, sitting up in bed as Cas climbs over him, reaching for his boots. 

“No,” they say in unison. 

“Dean, there’s no sense in you standing outside just to freeze. Cas wants to learn, let him learn. Now get your coat, Cas, I’ll meet you out front.”

Cas waits until Sam is out of sight before he sits on the edge of their bed, gently pushing Dean back onto the pillows. “Sleep,” he says, “Please. The cold is not good for you.”

“It’s not good for anyone,” Dean argues. “And besides, you won’t be here beyond the weekend. Who do you think is gonna get up with Sam then?”

“It will be you,” Cas agrees, pressing a warm kiss to his check. “But please, for now, let me.” 

“This is ridiculous,” he mumbles, allowing Cas to pulls the quilts up to his chest. “Been calving longer than any of you, save Bobby.”

“I know,” he says. “I love you.”

“Jesus, Cas,” he groans. “It’s three in the morning.”

Cas smiles against his lips and slips out the door without a sound. 

—

“Smells like winter,” Dean says. They watch the sunset from the porch steps, pressed against each other with one of his mothers old knitted afghans draped over their shoulders. Cas’ hand is warm from here it rests on his thigh, gently tapping his fingers to a beat only he can hear. 

“Doesn’t smell much like Russia, though,” he continues, when Cas only hums in response. 

Cas’ train is scheduled to leave from Kansas City at seven the next morning, and Dean can use the distraction right about now so he asks, “Don’t you think?”

“Winter in Petrograd,” Cas begins, his eyes fixed on the horizon line. “Smells of bricks.”

“Bricks?”

“The brick makers burn day and night and the smoke stays all winter.” 

“Bricks, huh.” He breathes. “What’s that like?”

“Dirt,” Cas says after a moment. “And sometimes sweet. Every brick maker smells different, they burn different things, make different - ” he pauses then, unsure.

“Clay?”

“Yes.” Cas squeezes his thigh in thanks. “Clay.”

“Maybe one day we’ll visit together. And I’ll know just what you’re talking about,” Dean offers. The sun has already set, sending the fields into the blue haze of dusk. He remembers wondering what Cas thought of when he said the word Petrograd, back when they only shared a few words of English between them and winter hovered at Siberia’s edge. Cas’ eyes are closed and this time Dean knows he’s imagining brick smoke and clay. 

They go to bed early, barely touching supper, spurred on by Sam’s reminder that they’ll be up before dawn to get to the station on time. Alone in their bedroom, Dean rests his head against Cas’ chest and listens to the steady metronome of his heartbeat. He counts the slow stretch of days between now and Thanksgiving, when Cas has promised to return.

“Sleep,” Cas whispers, tracing idle patterns along the curve of his shoulder blade. 

Dean wants to stay awake, he wants to clutch onto every second he has left, to catalogue the hundreds of times Cas’ chest will rise and fall before the sun comes up. But all too soon, Cas’ fingers against his skin lull him into something close to sleep. He doesn’t remember closing his eyes but he does find himself daydreaming about how all of Lawrence will whisper about the man who comes to visit the Winchesters. Maybe, by the time Christmas comes around, he’ll have travelled back to Kansas more times than their father has since the war first started.

He imagines the girl at the post office who will gossip about their packages, the ones that come specially marked from the capital, addressed to Dean and Sam and sometimes even Bobby. They suspect it’s the reason that two small-town ranchers always have newly fashioned boots and heavy coats, why they have chocolates and confectionary sugar to spare even when it’s months from cattle season. 

Sam lends more books than the little library one town over and Dean wears a necklace of plated silver that rests low around his collarbones, visible only at a glance. On Thanksgiving, they buy out the butcher, and Dean spends most of Wednesday in the kitchen while Sam makes his customary trip to the train station. No one knows where John Winchester goes home to, and no one really asks. 

In late June, just before Independence Day, the town watches in a hush as Dean boards his own train and heads out east, dressed in a solemn military uniform that Sam pressed just that morning. He returns with gifts enough for all of the children in the schoolhouse, but he returns alone. 

The man who visits the Winchesters comes and goes like clockwork through the lives of their neighbors, taking up residence in the town’s fleeting memory. He wears a suit of the deepest black to John Winchester’s funeral, and neither he nor Dean are seen for days and days outside of the relative safety of the ranch. He wears another suit of navy blue to Sam’s wedding, sitting at Dean’s side in the first row of pews, with Dean tailored up to match. He comes rushing back in the long dark of February, when reports of Dean’s pneumonia turn grim, and Sam is seen ushering him into a car at the station, harried and windswept. 

For eight years the Winchesters live a life divided, until one day Dean sees the warning signs of drought and dust, Oklahoma and Texas and Kansas most of all, set to burn. And the last time he arrives, the man who visits the Winchesters packs up trunks and suitcases by hand, roping them together and packing them into a shining black car. He stands at Dean’s side when they finalize the sale of the old ranch house at the bank down main street, and this time when they leave, they leave together.


End file.
